Dont Make Me Ask You Again
Preoccupations
Please Don't Make Me Ask for Another Recommendation
This twelvemonth I sought no fewer than two dozen recommendation messages.
A baker's dozen were for grant proposals. Six were for writing and reporting fellowships, three for a visiting research scholar position, two for writing residencies. I await that the total, through year's end, will continue to abound.
I fully accept that I need recommendation letters, just the process, as it stands now, is unmanageable, inconsistent and an unnecessary burden on the kind people who accept been writing these letters at my request.
The procedures in applications vary widely. 1 requests that messages be sent directly by the person writing the recommendation. Another requires that applicants first forward a template to a recommender, who must utilize that model to write a letter, which is so to be emailed to the program director. Many programs, retreats, universities and institutions, fifty-fifty The Times, require that letters be submitted through external websites. 3rd-party services similar Submittable, Slideroom and Screendoor collect applications and dispatch recommendation requests, which is fine, since I shudder at the prospect of handling and reviewing letters about me.
But this doesn't seem off-white to the people writing the letters. I dread asking the aforementioned people for the same basic thing repeatedly, knowing they volition have to alter their recommendations to fit the requirements of new applications.
Michael Shapiro, a professor at the Columbia Academy Graduate School of Journalism who has cheerfully written at least a dozen recommendations on my behalf, recently wrote i that was only 48 words long. Nine of them were adjectives. His note was obviously effective considering I was appointed to the position for which I had applied.
Still, I feared that I had finally worn him out. He assured me that I hadn't and that I had given him enough time to handle all these requests. But for the future, he asked me to keep in heed ane rule that he asks of all students: Allow at to the lowest degree ii weeks to set a recommendation letter of the alphabet.
"Getting a note proverb 'and the deadline is today at five latest' makes me feel as if I will wilt nether the pressure of a deadline that is not my own," Mr. Shapiro said.
Considering I keep finding new opportunities — or, perhaps, go along overextending myself — I often go shopping for new recommendations. Near people I approach say they are happy to help. Pride and camaraderie and fellowship are compelling: Colleagues and contemporaries usually say they would be delighted to provide recommendations. Withal sometimes I realize I am request a colleague to complete a tedious form or write a letter of the alphabet during a precious vacation weekend. I feel terrible about that.
A recent enlistee, Seyward Darby, the executive editor of The Atavist Magazine, wrote a recommendation letter for me graciously. Ms. Darby says she writes from six to 10 of them each year and would like to see a streamlined organization, modeled, perhaps, on the standard Common Application used by many colleges.
That "would definitely be convenient for an editor (or anyone, really) who submits recommendations on the regular," she wrote in an electronic mail. More important, she said, "a coordinated system would exist vital to freelancers."
Ms. Darby suggested the creation of a key repository where recommendations assessing "accomplishments, skills, and character, are always waiting to be read." That would cut down on "time and stress," she said.
LinkedIn has already instituted a arrangement in which recommendation letters may exist viewed and shared. "It'due south always been very important to sympathise what other people retrieve of yous," said Hari Srinivasan, director of production management at LinkedIn. Adding reference letters to your contour leads to more opportunities, he said. "Earlier you fifty-fifty get into the process of someone asking for" a recommendation, he said, it will already be visible.
LinkedIn's innovation is helpful, but many workplaces however enquire for contained references and letters. And a professional work force could use a clearinghouse that is both more private and more inclusive: a place where recommendation messages are available only for people who have received permission to encounter them.
Call it iRecommend, a website in which applicants get together testimonials from people who adjure to their workmanship and credibility. Those who write these messages would demand to fix only 1 generalized recommendation for anyone, with the ability to retract it for whatever reason and at whatsoever time. As someone amasses recommendations, a career path might exist linked to a résumé that could guide a reviewer toward a determination.
To me, at least, this seems like a reasonable option. Until something of this nature is instituted, though, I will need to go along gathering references and recommendation letters — and writing them for people I know are worthy of them. But I practise wish there were a better style.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/01/jobs/please-dont-make-me-ask-for-another-recommendation.html
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