Interested to hear what people’s opinions are on giving people a copy of their written reference / letter of recommendation. I’m used to a model where someone who works for me secures an interview and the prospective employer then contacts me separately for a reference. I will then send the employer the letter.
Lately, a lot of people have been asking me to give them the letter, which they will then use to apply for positions. So they basically have a permanent copy of my letter.
Do people see a meaningful difference between the two situations?
I’m not an old school guy who writes ‘secret’ references, and am always happy to show anyone their letter of recommendation. And it is certainly way less hassle not to have to respond to every employer besieging me to send references. However, I recently gave a person a strong reference, after which she let me down badly, such that there is no way I can support her in the future. It bothers me that she has my letter of recommendation.
It’s better to write directed recommendations, and not leave the employee with an open letter that they can do anything with.
I always figure that I may cross paths with someone I wrote a recommendation to. I’d want them to feel I was honest with them, and hopefully recommended a good future employee. If I can’t write a good honest recommendation, I’ll find some excuse not to do it at all.
To try to avoid the situation you described, when I give out letters of recommendation, I try to date them very clearly, and include a way to contact me. Not just the date at the top of the letter, but to work in references to the date within the body of the letter. (For example, I’ll write "Having supervised The Cocky Watchman for five years (from 1995-2000), I found him to be quite cocky indeed. Please feel free to contact me at phone#, and I would be pleased to provide more information.) I figure that eventually the letter is going to expire, and the person will be asked to provide a more recent letter, or someone will call me to follow up. I know when I hire people, I would be very :dubious: about a reference letter that was more than a year or so old.
I do have a couple of letters on file, since I’ve moved around and don’t necessarily have contact info for people anymore. On one job, my boss had me write the letter and he signed it?! I made a few copies to have ones with original signatures on hand.
I’ve only had to write a letter for one person, and I did it upon request from her when she was looking. Later she had me update it with the current date. She was a mixed bag and I wrote an honest letter but did not give her the “recommend without reservation” I would give people I truly liked and respected. Perhaps this was lost on the prospective employer, but I don’t mind her having the letter in perpetuity because it will remain true.
Right again, in fact my Bro was given a 1-800number and a code number. They call that toll-free phone, enter the number and it confirms that info. No humans are spoken to.