It almost comes with the position. Senior executives are often requested to give letters of recommendation to former or current employees. Your recommendation is highly sought out because a reputable third party vouching for a potential employee is worth tonnes to a hiring manager. Therefore, you should establish what is required to write a good letter of recommendation.

First things first: do not feel obligated to write a recommendation letter. If you are doubtful of your capability to honestly recommend an employee, politely decline and request that they find someone more suitable. A good letter of recommendation usually requires some amount of effort, not to mention, it should be as truthful as possible. You are selling an individual to their potential employer, and as much as the employee has to do 90% of the work themselves, your opinion is highly regarded and should hold up to its credibility. Only write letters of recommendation for employees who you have worked with.

How to write a good letter of recommendation

As in any letter, the main sections are the introduction, body, and closing. To write a good letter of recommendation, you should include certain elements that portray – and prove – the suitability of the employee, and even more-so, to make the hiring manager’s work straight forward.

But the work starts way before putting pen to paper (or finger to keyboard, to those here in 2016 with us).

Getting background information

In order to write a good letter of recommendation, a fair amount of preparation has to be done. You should always request the employee to provide you with the following.

Request for:

CV – The CV gives an overview of the employee’s professional and academic career. It gives you an all-rounded understanding of the employee’s passions and career progression as contributing factors to their future potential role. This background understanding provides a good base for recommending them. If you’d like to go even further, request for their academic papers and solidify your reference.

Cover Letter – Another document I highly advise you to request for is the cover letter drafted and presented in their application. Cover letters are solely written to express an employee’s motivation for that specific role. This gives you an understanding of their interest in the position. If the cover letter is well written, it should match their past experience as a presumptive pointer to their future success.

Job Description – The job description for the role they are applying for is a template for the skills you should emphasize. Matching each requirement to a skill the employee already possesses provides relevant information to the hiring manager. It also makes it easy for them to see why they should hire that employee. Instead of having to waste their time on a generic letter of recommendation, target it to give the relevant information.

Employee’s requests – if the aforementioned are done satisfactorily, it is unlikely that you will emphasize on skills that the employee would rather you leave out. However, you can ask them for a list of the marketable assets they would like you to highlight on. Naturally, you should personally have observed those capabilities in order to honestly vouch for them.

Employee’s LinkedIn – Referees often overlook doing a background LinkedIn Profile check on the person they are giving a recommendation. LinkedIn has vast amounts of career information that you will not easily access via other means. Here you can view posts the employee has published; these show their industry interest areas. Items such as these help in gaining background insight on the employee. It is likely that the hiring manager will check their LinkedIn too (87% of them do, according to Jobvite – refine and link this),  so tap into this resource if you want to write a superior letter of recommendation.

Writing the Letter of Recommendation

With all the background information at hand, it is now a fairly simple process to write the letter of recommendation. The format is that of a standard letter – with mentionable variations in the function of each segment.

The Introduction

Formally introduce yourself and expound on the professional relationship between yourself and the employee. State your job title clearly. This section should include the circumstances of your work relationship; how long did you work together? Did you supervise them? The introduction mainly shows the hiring manager who you are and why they should give consideration to the candidate based on your opinion.

The Body

In this section,  you are trying to recommend the person for the role they are seeking, not emphasizing on their past performance. Keeping that in mind, you are able to prove their capability at succeeding in their new role. Use examples of specific achievements and the skills the employee used to attain certain results. These examples should be in line with the requirements at the new post in order to assure the hiring manager that they are the right fit.

In addition to their technical skills, draw attention to their soft skills. Hiring managers receive substantial amounts of applications from highly skilled individuals. This area emphasizes on traits specific to your employee. Review the job description of the new role and scatter the employee’s soft skill-set counterpart. To add value, you could also mention the character traits they have that make them the perfect candidate.

Use these to detail three strong areas in which you can endorse the employee. Lay these out in three paragraphs and be as clear as possible.

Take it even further. If this is an employee you feel you would highly recommend, endorse them on LinkedIn. Give four to five lines of good recommendation on their LinkedIn Profiles. You can borrow from your letter of recommendation draft or your can make it more general. However, make it clear what value that employee can add to any organization they work in. If the employee is not on LinkedIn, perhaps one of the best recommendations you can give them for their career progression is to get started on it. Our free eCourse on the Starter Guide for getting Up and Running With LinkedIn reveals the reasons as to why they should.

Closing

Restate why you highly recommend the employee for the job. Summarize the most important requirements and reiterate how he/she fits that role. Provide a positive statement on how much of an asset the employee will be. In this section, you should also provide details of how the hiring manager or recruitment team can reach you should they require any additional information.

Remember, the letter of recommendation is not the be-all-end-all of the employee’s application. Most of the work should be done and has already been done by them – given the progress in their application thus far. Yours is just a soft (and reputable) nudge to aid them further in their career.

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