4 ms·

I have been asked to write all my letters of recommendation myself, and the professor/employer will simply make changes and print it on university/company lette

I have been asked to write all my letters of recommendation myself, and the professor/employer will simply make changes and print it on university/company letterhead. I know what details are important to highlight in the letter, and have always been met with the logic that "therefore it only makes sense for you to write it".

PedroBatista 7y ago
But we all know the reason is effort. They have "better things to do".
ulucs 7y ago
That just means that the letters from your institution carry no value to the letter readers. The letters only carry weight when the people behind them have credibility
WomanCanCode 7y ago
This is the best kind of recommendation letter. Who knows you more but yourself?
- neltnerb 7y ago
  Even if I'm super happy with someone's performance, a bullet list of the achievements they want to highlight is extremely useful. Heck, I have a hard time remembering exactly what I accomplished in the last year, it's super risky to assume your recommender will remember for you or happen to mention what you think is important. It's like... I keep a bullet list of things I've accomplished at work and add to it when I feel like I did something worth highlighting as especially helpful. Then during my performance review I've got more in active memory than to discuss what I did last week. Plus your recommender won't know the context of how you're pitching your application. They don't know the other recommenders you picked or what story you want to tell, even if they have the luxury of enough free time to write something personal. As a recommender, the one that I find most obnoxious is that they usually ask you to "rate people relative to others you've worked with" which is just a ridiculous question. I'm at MIT, if I find someone seems to me like they'd fit in as a first or second year grad student at MIT but maybe in the lower half, do you actually want me to write down that they're below average? It's pretty clear that it is not the question you intended to ask when you don't bother to even ask me what kinds of people I've worked with before. You can't ask people to numerically rank performance when there's never been an agreement on the scale! And knowing that you're likely using it as a first pass filter makes it even worse; what, are you going to somehow correct for the difference between the people I've worked with versus everyone else according to some magic objective scale? Even if you know that I'm comparing to MIT students, do you realize MIT has 10000+ students with skill levels all over the map? Do you know that I value practical skills more than most because I've seen what makes someone successful in lab? It's just a part of the recommendation letters I wish they'd just leave out. Filter based on GREs or something else that while equally pointless is at least uniform and then just read the letter and think what you want. Don't ask me to do half the thinking so that you can do none.
gowld 7y ago
Sadly, that hurts talented great people who are modest or bad self promoters.
- mdorazio 7y ago
  If you know you're bad at self-promotion, ask a friend or family member who is good at it to write the letter for you. If you either don't know you're bad at self-promotion or don't know anyone who is and would be willing to help you, you're probably not as much of a "talented great person" as you think you are. To me, this is the system working as intended.
pbuzbee 7y ago
I've been asked this when requesting a letter of recommendation, and honestly I find it a bit insulting when I worked with the person closely. I see writing letters of recommendation as one of the responsibilities that comes with more powerful/prestigious positions. If you work closely with someone, a recommendation request is a way of giving back and helping further someone's career. If you ask me to write my own letter, it implies that either you haven't paid much attention to my contributions or that you don't think that I'm worth your time. To be clear, I'm talking about cases where the person should be familiar with me and my work, such as a direct supervisor or research advisor. If I'm asking someone who isn't familiar with me, then I think it's far more fair to ask me to write my own letter.

PedroBatista 7y ago

But we all know the reason is effort. They have "better things to do".

ulucs 7y ago

That just means that the letters from your institution carry no value to the letter readers. The letters only carry weight when the people behind them have credibility

WomanCanCode 7y ago

This is the best kind of recommendation letter. Who knows you more but yourself?

neltnerb 7y ago
Even if I'm super happy with someone's performance, a bullet list of the achievements they want to highlight is extremely useful. Heck, I have a hard time remembering exactly what I accomplished in the last year, it's super risky to assume your recommender will remember for you or happen to mention what you think is important. It's like... I keep a bullet list of things I've accomplished at work and add to it when I feel like I did something worth highlighting as especially helpful. Then during my performance review I've got more in active memory than to discuss what I did last week. Plus your recommender won't know the context of how you're pitching your application. They don't know the other recommenders you picked or what story you want to tell, even if they have the luxury of enough free time to write something personal. As a recommender, the one that I find most obnoxious is that they usually ask you to "rate people relative to others you've worked with" which is just a ridiculous question. I'm at MIT, if I find someone seems to me like they'd fit in as a first or second year grad student at MIT but maybe in the lower half, do you actually want me to write down that they're below average? It's pretty clear that it is not the question you intended to ask when you don't bother to even ask me what kinds of people I've worked with before. You can't ask people to numerically rank performance when there's never been an agreement on the scale! And knowing that you're likely using it as a first pass filter makes it even worse; what, are you going to somehow correct for the difference between the people I've worked with versus everyone else according to some magic objective scale? Even if you know that I'm comparing to MIT students, do you realize MIT has 10000+ students with skill levels all over the map? Do you know that I value practical skills more than most because I've seen what makes someone successful in lab? It's just a part of the recommendation letters I wish they'd just leave out. Filter based on GREs or something else that while equally pointless is at least uniform and then just read the letter and think what you want. Don't ask me to do half the thinking so that you can do none.

gowld 7y ago

Sadly, that hurts talented great people who are modest or bad self promoters.

mdorazio 7y ago
If you know you're bad at self-promotion, ask a friend or family member who is good at it to write the letter for you. If you either don't know you're bad at self-promotion or don't know anyone who is and would be willing to help you, you're probably not as much of a "talented great person" as you think you are. To me, this is the system working as intended.

pbuzbee 7y ago

I've been asked this when requesting a letter of recommendation, and honestly I find it a bit insulting when I worked with the person closely. I see writing letters of recommendation as one of the responsibilities that comes with more powerful/prestigious positions. If you work closely with someone, a recommendation request is a way of giving back and helping further someone's career. If you ask me to write my own letter, it implies that either you haven't paid much attention to my contributions or that you don't think that I'm worth your time. To be clear, I'm talking about cases where the person should be familiar with me and my work, such as a direct supervisor or research advisor. If I'm asking someone who isn't familiar with me, then I think it's far more fair to ask me to write my own letter.