When the leaves start to turn red in the area where I live, I realize that another season is approaching. It is a recommended season. As the academic recruitment cycle begins and graduate school application deadlines approach, requests for these documents begin to accumulate like a pile of leaves. Add to this a year-long cycle of providing telephone referrals and filling out forms for non-academic work, and the average higher education professional provides recommendations that we never learned how to make. I have this responsibility on a daily basis.
That’s unfortunate. That’s because letters and recommendation calls are opportunities to establish credibility, build a reputation, and fulfill a professional responsibility that benefits everyone involved. “I recommend Jane Doe” is action language that does exactly what its name suggests. It is based on a basic trust relationship. Recommendations often have to perform the task of creating trust between parties who do not know each other well or at all.
It’s been almost 20 years since I wrote my first letter of recommendation for a student, and I cringe when I think back to the clichés and generalizations I thought would convince the reader. Below, we will discuss some strategies for providing honest, reliable, and above all helpful recommendations that will allow you to fulfill your professional obligations in a meaningful way.
Get to know the candidates
The golden rule is to only recommend people you know well. Sharing how long you have known the person you are recommending and what your background is will clarify the limits of your knowledge and increase the credibility of your statements. Supervising someone for several years is different from working on a project together as colleagues for several months. Teaching students in a course is different from serving as a mentor. All of these interactions are valuable, but they are not equal.
Perhaps you’ve been asked for a recommendation by someone you knew well 10 years ago, or in a situation completely unrelated to your current professional goals. Perhaps your experience with the candidate wasn’t as positive as they recall, or maybe the candidate asked a last-minute question. If your recommendation is at risk of appearing stale, trite, or unenthusiastic, you may be doing the candidate a favor by declining it. Still, you can warmly express your support for them and suggest alternative endorsers if needed. But to credibly recommend, you have to be ready to say no.
You should also resist shortcuts, such as asking candidates to write the letter themselves or having generative artificial intelligence create the letter for you (without heavy editing). Candidates have enough trouble writing about themselves when they’re not pretending to be someone else. Your perspective is valuable precisely because it is external. And speaking of the outside world, our robot friends don’t know enough about us personally (yet) to share concrete human examples that would make the letter compelling. .
Please do your research
If the candidate’s schedule and expectations match yours, and you can provide a personally crafted and enthusiastic recommendation for the opportunity at hand, the next step is to identify the materials you will need to prepare the recommendation. is to request. For me, this usually consists of a job description, a cover letter, and a CV or resume. If you do not have a cover letter handy, ask for a brief summary of your interest in the opportunity and the aspects of your candidacy that you would like to highlight.
Learning more about an opportunity often generates follow-up questions about what the candidate learned about the opportunity that isn’t obvious from the description. Why does the organization’s mission resonate with them? Why is this the natural next step in their career? Answering these questions will help you make recommendations based on the reality of the person on the receiving end. You can. At this point, if I have personal information about the candidate that I believe would strengthen my recommendation, I will ask for permission to share it.
This may sound like a daunting task, even though it seems like an easy task to many. If so, it would be correct. But remember, you can say no to requests for recommendations. If you are invested enough to endorse a candidate, you may have endorsed that candidate on multiple occasions, even over several months or years. By investing time and effort upfront, you can draft a baseline recommendation letter or issue set that you can update and tweak as needed with minimal additional effort.
justify one’s claim
Recruiters typically evaluate technical skills as well as soft skills when considering candidates. There are many ways to directly and accurately assess technical skills during applications and interviews. For example, in my field, at least one interview question is asked and answered in French to determine whether a person’s self-assessment is “native-native.” “Fluency” was accurate. Gathering interpersonal and problem-solving skills during the application process can be difficult. Your role as a recommender becomes especially important here, and the details you choose to share can make a big difference in the candidate’s outcome.
If you understand the opportunity and know the candidate well within a defined context, it’s relatively easy to identify two or three criteria on which the position and candidate are a good match. For example, if you’ve identified communication, teamwork, and time management as the most important skills for the position, brainstorm once or twice as the candidate demonstrates each skill. The STAR method, in which applicants reflect on their actions in specific situations and their results, is not just for job seekers. Recommenders can also use this to paint a clear picture of the candidate’s strengths.
I’ve already mentioned the disgusting statements I made in my early letters of recommendation. As a new instructor, I routinely offered broad general arguments when specific examples would have been much more convincing. For example, the hypothetical student Jane Doe probably isn’t the best communicator in the world, nor does she need to be. She doesn’t even have to be the best communicator you’ve ever met. However, she would benefit if you detailed one or two instances where her communication strategy was effective and impactful.
Recognize room for growth
A mentor once gave me shocking advice. It’s normal, and actually desirable, to apply for roles that align with your career path, even if you don’t meet all the qualifications. Doing so means you want to learn and grow professionally, and that reflects well on you as a candidate. As a recommender, identifying a candidate’s areas of growth doesn’t have to be negative, whether you’re writing a letter or having a conversation. It can be an opportunity to demonstrate your enthusiasm for the role and understanding of its key elements.
During a reference checking conversation, the hiring manager is likely to ask you for areas of growth, but it’s just as likely that they’ll try to elicit specific examples of the candidate’s weaknesses. “I can’t think of anything” is not a reliable answer, but I’ve heard it said. This suggests that you either don’t know the candidate well enough to provide a meaningful recommendation or are not proactive in a setting where professional integrity is expected. This erodes credibility in a way that jeopardizes all the positive words you have said about the candidate. Instead, your goal should be to focus on the candidate’s strengths while skillfully recognizing their weaknesses.
When asked directly about a candidate’s weaknesses, my approach is to talk about areas in which the candidate has demonstrated self-awareness. In other words, “Jane Doe is working on prioritizing her workload in a way that keeps it under control. She has started using project management software and her ability to communicate accurate timelines accordingly. I see her improving. When it comes to time management, her strengths are her self-reflection and responsiveness to feedback. She has access to additional support, including regular one-on-one support. If this opportunity is truly right for Jane, sharing this information will help set her up for success.
influence
In the nearly 20 years since I wrote my first letter of recommendation, I have served on several search committees and been on the receiving end of interviews. What I learned from this experience is that honest, trustworthy, and thoughtful recommendations are worth their weight in gold. As higher education professionals, we may groan or sigh about the amount of letters we have to write or the number of conversations we have to schedule. In fact, the entire process may seem daunting at first, and you may even feel disappointed if your candidate is not selected.
However, the benefit of having reliable and accurate recommendations does not mean that candidates receive every offer available. It’s that this person you choose to support through your carefully chosen words of advocacy receives the right offer, and the organization making the offer gets the right candidate in return. It’s a sense of satisfaction that fosters a mutually beneficial match. And it’s a joy to take the time to see my students and colleagues as I want others to see them: as their best professional selves.
Vanessa Doriot Anderson is associate dean for academic and career development in the Graduate School of Medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is a member of the Graduate Career Consortium, an organization that provides an international voice for graduate-level career and professional development leaders. When I’m not busy nominating humans, I enjoy helping local animal shelters nominate dogs.
