Letters of Recommendation

Shamelessly stolen from my former colleague David Barbella. Adapted December 2022.

Hi!

If you’re interested in having me write a letter of recommendation for you, here are the steps you should take. This will make it as easy as possible for me to write the strongest letter I can, which is important for both of us.

Get in touch as soon as possible

Get in touch with me as soon as you know you’ll be needing a letter from me. The more lead time you can give me, the better, especially during parts of the year when letters are in high demand. A month is ideal; if I hear from you less than a week before the deadline, I likely will not be able to craft a letter for you. We’ll meet to discuss the jobs or programs you’re applying for. Do this before you fill out applications, if possible.

Most programs will provide you with a place to provide the names and email addresses of people who will write your letters. You should always ask recommenders if they are willing and able to write you a letter before you put their names down. If given the option, you should always waive the rights to view your recommendations; if you do not do this, there is a good chance that your recommendation will not be given full weight, and many people are not comfortable writing letters if the rights to view them are not waived. I will not agree to write you a letter if I’m not going to write you a good one, so don’t worry about that.

What I need from you

After I agree to write you a letter, get me the following things, together, in an e-mail:

  • A resume or CV, if you have one. If you don’t have one, this is a good time to put one together.
  • A transcript (unofficial is fine) of the coursework you’ve done.
  • A list of projects you’ve worked on that you think are cool, and a list of opportunities you’ve taken advantage of outside of classes (such as conferences, hackathons, workshops, training, student leadership, etc.), if these aren’t on your CV.
  • A draft of the application letter you’re using to apply to the programs or jobs. If you don’t have one, an outline of why you’re applying to the program or job.
  • Any other information you think would be helpful for me to craft a strong letter. Don’t be afraid of bragging. Remember that you might have skill sets that I have no idea exist.
  • Any information about how the letters should be submitted. (Most places do it electronically, but that still isn’t universal.)
  • If you need letters sent to multiple places, a big table detailing each place a letter needs to go and what the deadline is.

When emailing documents in this context, a pdf, txt, or markdown file is much preferred to docx, pages, or odt. Sometimes text in an email is fine.

The traditional advice for professional documents applies here. Please clean up typos (Grammarly can be helpful for this), maintain consistent formatting, and otherwise make it easy for me to access the material.

This might seem like a lot, but this is all information you’ll want to have anyway, if you’re applying to most positions.

After you ask

If anything happens before the deadline that you think I should include, keep me up to date.

As the deadline approaches, it can be helpful to send me a reminder a few days in advance, just in case.

After you hear back from the places you’ve applied, please let me know how it went.

Important note

If I agree to write you a letter, I’m agreeing to write you a strong, enthusiastic letter. If I don’t think I can do that for you, I’ll tell you that up front. It’s a waste of both of our time for me to agree to write you a letter and then write a negative letter or one that makes only a weak recommendation. While I will always be honest in any letter I write, you don’t need to worry that I’m going to secretly write you a negative letter.