Re: Letters of Recommendation - Tips on How to Write Them

[Joel Rauber <Joel_Rauber@SDSTATE.EDU>]

Good comments, others from other folks?

> . . .
> with the blanks filled in using a non-matching font.  Such a
> letter doesn't
> significantly hurt an otherwise-strong candidate (it just
> gets ignored) but
> it causes us to laugh at the person who prepared it.

I'm not sure you should laugh at the preparer, it might mean they have 200
letters of recommendation to prepare while teaching 4 courses, etc etc.  or
it might be a clever way of sending a negative recommendation, i.e. by
saying nothing.


> On the other side of the coin:
>  -- Grade in one course means nothing.

Although, if that is all I know about the student, it tells you something
about the knowledge base the recommendation is coming from

>   Example #2:  The best programmer I ever hired couldn't get
> into a decent
> grad school because his GRE scores were too low.  He's just
> got a phobia
> about tests.  Sheesh.  He's way smarter than the faculty
> members who turned
> him down.  (If they're nice to him, maybe he'll forget about
> that little
> incident and endow a couple of buildings for them....)

Just because the programmer was smarter than the professors that turned him
down (let's stipulate), it doesn't mean that they were wrong to do so. It
means that an employer needs to look at more than pieces paper (degrees)
when making the hiring decision.  Also, it may mean that this programmer
would have gained (learned) nothing by going to grad school.

 I'd venture that the results of this person's career verify the last
statement.

a couple of more 2 cents worth, and a little ranting.  This thread is
helpful to those of us who face writing letters of recommendation in the
course of our jobs; thanks to all for all comments.

Joel Rauber