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Eastern European Guide to Writing Reference Letters
- ggeorgovassilis 4y agoThis is about references in academia. Very detailed, still a good read.
- bee_rider 4y agoEven so...
- izacus 4y agoAll of this holds true in private corporations as well. The baseline for praise is much much different between west coast and eastern europe which can be problematic in performance packets, reviews and general manager/employee communicaiton. For us Eastern Europeans the takeaway is to exaggerate, exaggerate and when in doubt praise some more when talking to Americans. Otherwise, your reports or your own performance review might be viewed as very negative to people that have grown up on "shit sandwitch" type feedback and praise. Culture Map is indeed a good book to read.
- Ekaros 4y agoKinda also reminds me of star ratings. For USA it seems 5 star is average. 4 star is bad. Where as in other parts 5 star would be stellar.
- euroderf 4y agoThis is why I never provide feedback to apps that involve people (e.g. ride "sharing" apps): Anything less than 5 stars is an internet slap in the face.
- ghaff 4y agoI'm fine with giving, say, books on Amazon a 3 or 4 star rating if they were basically "OK." But, yes, in a lot of contexts, anything other than a 5 star rating is considered bad and everyone knows that fact so more than a few "only" 4 star ratings and the Uber driver gets kicked off the service, the AirBnB owner loses their superhost status, or someone misses out on their bonus.
- bobthechef 4y ago
- rr888 4y agoI kinda feel thisn't about Eastern Europe, its USA vs the rest of the world. The "25 things British Say vs What they mean" meme is pretty similar. https://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifestyle/25-things-british-say-what-they-actually-mean-that-you-never-knew.html https://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifestyle/25-things-britis...
- bee_rider 4y agoI don't think it is -- the suggestion is that there's a spectrum of positivity, where Americans describe things very excitably and Eastern Europeans tend to be more modest. So we'd both be outside the norm from his point of view (the actual norm if you polled every English speaker would I guess be skewed a bit more in the American direction).
- marstall 4y agostrange list - all of those phrases have the same way of functioning in America - cueing a listener to "read between the lines" and flip their meaning.
- anonymousDan 4y agoAs someone who deals with a lot of PhD applications I have to say I pay very little attention (if any) to reference letters. Nonetheless, if I were to then this seems like sound advice.
- udev 4y agoI appreciate the author's intention to help. But I can't but be annoyed by his stance that "I am at Cambridge", therefore the way I prefer things to be formulated is the correct, universally accepted way. What's wrong with honest, no-nonsense recommendation letters? Why is flattering and positive language a requirement? I am sure the author knows how to differentiate "you are doing brilliant work" coming from his mother vs coming from the leading researcher in his field, and interprets each version accordingly. Similarly, what stops him interpreting "this is a good, promising, student" differently, depending of where it comes from? -- And I agree on another point with the author, yes it is "excruciating" to read recommendation letters, and also, it is "excruciating" and soul-crushing to write them if you are not used to telling white lies, and it is also "excruciating" as a student to deal with getting one, especially in institutions where the professor-to-student power distance is much higher that in western universities.
- shp0ngle 4y agoThis is intended for students that go to Cambridge, of course. I thought that was obvious from the article?
- udev 4y agoFrom the article "In summary, please take time to write strong recommendation letters for your best students." "of course" and "obviously" it is not intended for students, but for professors writing recommendation letters for student that intend to go Cambridge.
- rgavuliak 4y agoI am an Eastern European that worked a lot for US companies (or generally the West). While it sounds like a no-nonsene attitude should work, I've found that being more salesy and positive works wonders when interacting with people from the US (I know Cambridge isn't the US, but it's likely similar in this aspect). This "I am not impressed by anything" attitude, results in you either omitting achievements that other candidates have listed and/or underselling the ones you would think of putting down. This makes you look worse than the benchmark. And the benchmark in the USA will always be skewed towards it's cultural lense.
- paganel 4y agoI appreciate the author of the article wanting to do good, but the last thing we need here in Eastern Europe is even more brain drain.
- yrgulation 4y agoBelieve me it wont be this article that will cause a brain drain.
- _dw7s 4y agoYes, because hiding information is definitely going to slow down the brain drain.
- pastage 4y agoYou just described how to get brain drain, by limiting the development of your students you will for ever be stuck with no outside influences. Students will often come home even if they get education abroad.
- oblio 4y agoThis ONLY happens in countries with high salary ceilings: China, India, etc, or countries with high QoL despite low salaries: Southern Europe, Czechia.
- pastage 4y agoIs it really that bad? I often see people who go back after the fourth postdoc/job, but I guess that is such a small group of people that it's more noticeable.
- oblio 4y agoThat's probably 0.0001% of people. And Romania has a super low amount of researchers from the get go, lower than EU average for sure.
- petre 4y ago
- arka2147483647 4y agoThis also has the other side that an American style cv, for example, might be seen as "too positive" from eastern European perspective, and thus be ignored. That is; you read 10 CV's, all go through the roof of your superlative scale, therefore you ignore all of it, or consider all candidates as more-or-less equal and/or mediocre.
- wirrbel 4y agoA common reaction is: It cannot all be positive. Or, as a colleague of mine put it: "When I first interacted with americans, they were smiling so much I suspected they were trying to trick me in some way".
- oblio 4y ago
- azekai 4y agoWe are? I suspect many of us are trying to trick ourselves as much as everyone else.
- oblio 4y agoI love how my previous comment was even flagged :-) They're artificial smiles, I guess you're programmed to use them from an early age. I've literally seen an American coworker, from a distance, with a normal resting face, put it on once they were at a range where they'd realize it's me, then immediately drop it after passing by (I turned around precisely to see the follow up). My impression is that they're supposed to be a sign of success. A sort of Instagram reality before its time. People smiling are usually happy and probably successful. Plus, of course, it relaxes the interlocutor and makes them feel appreciated, up to a point. All in all, a gimmick.
- bobthechef 4y ago
- teddyh 4y ago"The Grand Canyon is ‘awesome,’ The Heavenly Cosmos are ‘awesome!’ This? Maybe interesting. But definitely not ‘awesome!’" — Harlan Ellison
- rmind 4y agoI have to say "Eastern European" is a quite poor and unhelpful generalization nowadays. It is ethnically and linguistically diverse: Slavic, Baltic, Finno-Ugric, Romance (Romania) as well as Albanian and Hellenic. It is religiously diverse: Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, Muslim and even the bastions of irreligion/atheism (Czechia and Estonia). There are significant cultural differences, especially comparing the more reserved north (Finland and Baltics) with the more emotional south (Balkans or even parts of Ukraine). There are also major economic differences, with central/north east being more or less high-income economies compared to the south and east-east. It even has inconsistent geographic definitions, e.g. whether it includes "Central Europe", whether it extends to Turkey or even Caucasus, etc. Many generalizations really don't work for such a vast and diverse region.
- jenny91 4y agoNobody counts Finland as part of their definition of "Eastern Europe".
- oblak 4y agoA guy from South Africa once made the same argument about Sweden. Whether he was right or not, geographically speaking, does not really matter. We all know what everybody means. Nordic good, Eastern bad. Sadly, it's mostly true.
- curiousgal 4y ago
- tchalla 4y ago> Poor reference letters hurt students. They give us no insight into the applicant's true strengths, and no ammunition to support the best candidates in scholarship competitions or the admission process in general. I decided to write this guide for students so they can share it with their professors when asking for reference letters. How about the university itself sharing the guide with professors when asking for a recommendation? Students have enough to do and adding more one on their list sounds ... odd.
- dekleinewolf 4y agoThe university is not directly in contact with the specific professors of its prospective students though? When the Eastern European students ask their professors to write them a reference letter to Cambridge, the prospective students can point their professor to this guide. I'm not sure how else Cambridge is supposed to reach 'potential professors of potential prospective students'.
- Tomte 4y agoRe: reference letters and cultural clashes: "all in all a very good second-rate mathematician" https://mathoverflow.net/questions/53122/mathematical-urban-legends/53914#53914 https://mathoverflow.net/questions/53122/mathematical-urban-...