The worst part of the job is grading, hands down. I really can't think of anyone disagreeing with that point.
To me, the second worst part of this job is writing recommendations. Don't get me wrong - I want to do everything I can to help my students get jobs. I am honored to be asked to write recommendations and take the task very seriously. But I find writing them as a whole incredibly hard work.
Some individual letters are actually pretty easy. The student who is truly spectacular and who I know well because she's been my research assistant or I've worked with him outside of class on some project -- that's an easy recommendation to write. It takes time, and I want it to be perfectly crafted to get across everything I know, but it's not that hard to do that.
It's when you get to other students that the difficulty kicks in. The basic challenge is this: I want to praise the student and give her a worthwhile recommendation but I don't want to a) diffuse the worth of my truly excellent students' recommendations or b) damn with faint praise.
Maybe others have mastered this, but I find this an absurdly hard line to walk. Any tips or thoughts?
What makes a letter "worthwhile"? Do you mean worthwhile to the student, in that it will get her a job, or do you mean worthwhile to the employer, in that it accurately informs the employer about the pros and cons of the student?
Posted by: Orin Kerr | June 27, 2011 at 02:48 PM
Both. The goal is to get the student the job, but to also accurately inform the employer. If I thought that doing the latter would not get the student the job, I would (and have) told the student that I won't write the letter.
Posted by: David S. Cohen | June 27, 2011 at 02:51 PM
Fascinating - from my perspective in graduate admissions, it's very helpful to see well-crafted letters about the applicants.
Posted by: Archana | June 27, 2011 at 03:40 PM
The best one I saw written, for a student that did not have a particularly good work ethic, was: "If you get this person to work for you, you will be lucky indeed." That doesn't seem like damning a student with faint praise...
Posted by: Stew Young | June 27, 2011 at 04:54 PM
Clinical professors are probably confronted with this issue more often than doctrinal professors. We are frequently asked for recommendations because we know students' work in a "real world" context quite well, and that may or may not be beneficial to our ability to write glowing letters. (Insert solution to quandary here.)
Posted by: Chris Fabricant | June 28, 2011 at 12:37 PM