It’s 5:30 a.m. I am up before the day starts to write yet another recommendation letter. I have to get up earlier than usual to make sure that the letters due today or tomorrow do not get lost in the ...

Writing a counselor recommendation letter for a student applying to college is a meaningful responsibility. You're not just offering support — you're adding valuable context that college admissions ...

Knowing how to write a recommendation letter means putting yourself and the person you’re recommending in the best possible light. After all, this letter could have a major impact on the future of the ...

It is an honor to be asked to be someone’s character reference. But even if you are enthused about helping a friend or colleague out, you might feel a little intimidated by the prospect of putting the ...

It is around this time of year, when letter-writing season is in full swing, that many professors receive numerous requests for recommendations from students and colleagues applying for graduate ...

Confirm you’re comfortable writing it. Politely declining is perfectly OK if you don’t feel you can write a strong or meaningful recommendation. It’s better to be honest than to provide a lukewarm ...

Here is a common scene: A supervisor agrees to write your letter of recommendation with one condition—you draft it. Shocker. We, too, were surprised the first time this happened to us. We assumed ...

Undergraduates need them for graduate-school applications; PhD students and postdocs use them to apply for fellowships and jobs; senior scientists often have to have them to apply for awards and ...

Q: I am periodically asked to write letters of recommendation for former students or colleagues. I’m generally happy to do this and pleased if they offer some direction about skills or experience they ...

It’s October and the requests are starting to pile up. They’re multiplying so fast they feel like an anvil-weight of duty perpetually hanging over your head. They refuse to dissipate as the semester ...

Johnny C. Taylor Jr. tackles your human resources questions as part of a series for USA TODAY. Taylor is president and CEO of the Society for Human Resource Management, the world's largest HR ...

Do you feel like you spend too much time working on your letters of recommendation? Do you want to know how to write letters that are really going to make a difference in your students' applications?