Recommendation Letter

You may be asked to write a recommendation letter to a subordinate, a colleague, a fellow-student or even to a friend. Moreover, in some cases you may need a recommendation letter yourself, and the person you are asking for it is not familiar with the rules of its writing, so s/he may ask you to write it yourself.

A recommendation should be given by people working in the same organization as the person who needs this recommendation. They should normally be of higher rank than you, and have enough authority to give recommendations. Ideally, a recommendation letter is written by manager of a person's department who contacted this person directly and controlled his/her work, because s/he will be able to provide a potential employer with the most competent information.

Before writing a letter of recommendation, you should naturally ask the person to tell you about all his/her achievements, projects and developments. And surely, if you do not know the person well enough, it is better to refuse to write a recommendation letter because it would then see, too dry and impersonal.

In the first paragraph (introduction) of a recommendation letter, you should state how long you have known the person you are giving recommendation to, and in how s/he is related to you. If the person is your colleague or subordinate, you should define the time s/he has been working for your company, as well as his/her duties and all significant projects s/he had worked on. It is also possible to say a couple of words about your company and its business activity. As a concluding sentence of this paragraph, you may sum up all you have written here, or utter your general opinion of that person.

The second paragraph of a letter of recommendation should characterize the person from the viewpoint of his/her professional qualities: you may describe the ability to cope with particular kind of tasks and duties, list all his/her achievements, and say what kinds of work s/he is especially good at. You may also notice the strong and weak sides of this person and describe how they reveal themselves at workplace. It is possible to write what impression this person produces upon other people in the process of communication and professional interaction.

In the third paragraph you should create a more precise picture of the person and characterize him/her more profoundly from the viewpoint of his/her personal qualities and behavior: whether s/he is responsible, polite, generous and amiable, or, vice versa, lazy, grumpy, and stubborn. Lastly, state whether you can recommend this person for obtaining some particular position.

Please, see Sample Recommendation Letter.

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