How to Get a Good Recommendation Letter
In this video, Dr. Justin Baeder shares practical advice on how to request and receive strong recommendation letters for education leadership positions.
Key Takeaways
- Ask the right people - Choose recommenders who know your work well and can speak to specific accomplishments
- Make it easy for them - Provide your resume, the job description, and key points you'd like them to address
- Ask early - Give recommenders plenty of lead time rather than a last-minute request
Transcript
So how do you ask for a recommendation letter?
The wrong way and what a lot of people do is they ask at the very last minute.
So if you need a recommendation letter from someone, please do them the professional courtesy of asking early.
It will give them more time to write you a good letter and it will show that you're the kind of person who deserves a good recommendation letter.
So above all, Don't wait till the last minute to ask.
Give somebody a good amount of time.
Also ask them for a draft recommendation letter because that's going to make it a lot less awkward to ask for revisions.
If you want them to speak to something specific or make some changes, that'll make the letter better.
Asking for a draft.
Kind of gives you an in to do that in the future.
Finally, you want to ask early, not just to give them enough time to write, but also to activate your network.
When you let people know that you are looking for new opportunities, you know, that may be a hard conversation to have, but it doesn't get easier as time goes on.
It gets harder as time goes on.
So ask early, and that'll give people a chance to put out feelers for you, to put in a good word for you, and to let you know about job opportunities that you might miss.
So that is what you can do to get a good recommendation letter.
Ask early, ask for a draft.
And if you want more job search tips, follow me over on Twitter at eduleadership.