FREE 10+ Sample Letters of Recommendation for Employment in MS Word | PDF

Letters of recommendation for employment are typically used as a tool in helping the employer decide if the applicant or candidate is going to be a good addition to the company’s workforce or otherwise. These sample letters are basically the writer’s testimony about the candidate regarding his/her professionalism, work ethics, and character. In short, it is a letter endorsing the candidate/applicant for the position that he/she has applied for in the company.

If you have been asked by a former colleague, student, or employee to write a recommendation for him/her but you are having a hard time thinking about what it is you should be writing about or if it is the first time you got asked to write a recommendation letter, we are here to help you out! We will be sharing with you a few tips and guidelines about how to write a captivating recommendation letter for employment. We also have recommendation letter samples that will help you get a head start on that letter-writing task you have. Keep reading!

Recommendation Letter from Employer

Generic Recommendation Letter for Employee

Basic Letter of Recommendation

Professional Letter of Recommendation

Letter of Recommendation from Professor

Employment Recommendation Letter for Coworker

Why Are Recommendation Letters Important?

Applying for jobs is not as easy as it seems. Throughout the whole hiring process, an employment candidate/applicant is surely striving to present himself/herself in the best light possible. Sometimes, even the best technical skills and the most relevant work experience will not cut it. Sometimes a little help from your friends, colleagues, and even former employers will do the job. This is where a recommendation letter for employment plays its role. It helps to strengthen the claims of the applicant/candidate during the interview and in his/her application documents. This is because beyond the resume and interview, an employer will typically look for ways of confirming the candidate’s qualifications from a third-party source.

Every employer wants to know whether an applicant would be a good fit with the company’s environment and work practices. Since a self recommendation letter talks about character and work ethic with a few samples that make every characteristic and skill more concrete. This helps paint a good picture about what an employee will be like and can even help determine a candidate’s future performance. Basically, the main smart goals of a recommendation letter is to complement the claims of the candidate and give the potential employer a simple glimpse about what he/she will be like as an employee.

If you have been asked to write a graduate school recommendation letter for someone, it can be quite a challenge and can even be nerve-racking. You know you want to do a good job at writing it since you certainly want to increase the chances of the applicant getting the job rather than having him/her lose a good opportunity.

Key Features of a Recommendation Letter

A good recommendation letter will have certain features that make it effective. In this part of the article, we will let you in on the key features of an effective recommendation letter for employment to ensure that you end up with a recommendation letter that is going to impress the employer and have him/her consider hiring the candidate you are recommending.

Explain Why You are Qualified to Write the Letter

Employers would want to read a recommendation letter that was written by someone who is qualified. Someone who will be considered as a reputable person tips to write the recommendation letter would be a current or former employer and a former professor. Occasionally, it can also be written by friends and family.

To let the employer know that you are qualified enough to be writing that letter, you have to establish it in the first paragraph. In the first paragraph, you let the reader know how long and to what extent you know the candidate. Your explanation of the relationship you have with the candidate is meant to get the trust of the employer and let him/her know that you are a person that can give an honest attestation about the candidate.

Remember, great guidelines for recommendation letter are written by someone who can talk about the person’s skills and accomplishments. This is also the reason why you have to be picky about the person you will be writing about. If you feel like you can’t write about the person in an honest manner or if you feel like he/she is a stranger to you, you can definitely politely say no. You also should let them know early so that they can have ample time to look for a replacement. There is no need to feel bad about declining the request. Instead, think of it as helping them dodging and importance of recommendation letter that might ruin their chances of getting the job.

Make Sure to Have It Customized

Just like cover letters, recommendation letters need to be customized for the specific company and position that the candidate applied for. You have to let the reader know why he/she would be a good fit for the job he/she is aiming for especially if he/she is changing careers.

To ensure that you will be able to customize the recommendation letter, setting a meeting with the candidate would be deemed as a good idea. This would be the chance for you to ask for the specifics of the job recommendation letter and what the requirements of sending the recommendations are.

Knowing all of these can definitely help you become more confident about what you will be writing about the candidate.

Specificity Is the Best Key

Being specific is absolutely necessary when it comes to these letters. Make sure you’re going to be able to provide specific examples about the skills and experiences of the candidate. You should be able to paint a picture of what the candidate can do on a day-to-day work basis.

Remember that being able to provide specific examples about the things that you will be saying about the candidate actually boosts the persuasiveness of that specific skill or experience.

Personal Letter of Recommendation

Employment Recommendation Letter Format

Recommendation Letter from an Employer

Letter of Recommendation from Supervisor

Employer Recommendation Letter for Nurse

Writing a Strong Recommendation Letter

The sample recommendation letters that we have in our website will definitely give you a good idea about how to write the letter. To ensure your letters end up more polished, here are a few more guidelines to writing a good recommendation letter.

Make Use of the Correct Format

As you have seen in our samples, there is a specific recommendation letter format that is being followed. To give you a good breakdown, it includes the following:

• Your personal details (name, address, and phone number)
• Date
• Recipient’s details (name, designation, company name, and business address)
• Salutation
• Body of the letter
• Closing
• Signature

Remember that before you close your letter, you should let the reader know that it would be okay for them to contact you for any further questions they might have about the candidate.

A few more additional formatting tips for recommendation letter that you should remember are as follows:

• Make sure that your letter is single-spaced.
• Leave a space in between each paragraph.
• Use formal font styles such as Georgia, Times New Roman, and Arial.
• Keep the font size between 10pt–12pt.
• Make use of high-grade printing paper (20lb) as these are more sturdy and feel nice to touch.
• When signing your letters, make sure you make use of sign pens that have either blue or black ink.
• Keep your letters brief. One page long is good enough.

Open Strong

• “It is my pleasure to recommend…”
• “It is my honor to write this recommendation letter for…”
• “I’m very pleased to be given this chance to write a recommendation letter for…”

The ones listed above are just some of the ways that you can open your letter in a strong manner. Make sure that your opening statement should immediately give the impression that you support the candidate and that you trust that he/she can deliver the tasks that have been assigned to him/her.

Do Not Go Overboard

The candidate will definitely have a lot of skills and experiences that will make him/her a good candidate. However, you do not want to give specific examples for each of these. Pick out at most top three that are considered to be his/her strengths and elaborate on these instead. Give about one to three examples and you are good to go!

Now you are ready to write a strong and effective recommendation letter! Make sure that you follow what we have shared and that you also make use of the samples we have. Good luck!