Negotiating with your recommender to get him to print your letter on his organization's letterhead and sign it can be tricky. How do you break it to your recommender that you think you can do a better job writing your letter than he can? Recommenders often lack writing skills, but they don't often lack egos.
What's more, we've all been taught that tooting our own horns is something we should avoid. What's your recommender to think if you try to force some brag letter on him to sign? He may very well think you are a presumptuous jerk!
Learning how to approach this situation is an important key to getting the letters of recommendation you need to make your career goals a reality.
As we've seen, there are two main reasons why potential recommenders are reluctant to write letters of recommendation: 1) they are just too busy, and 2) they can't write very well. Most fall into the second category, but all will give the first excuse.
Regardless of whether it is painfully obvious that your recommender has all the time in the world, you need to run with the premise that the real issue is time availability; never even hint that he might be afraid of being embarrassed by his poor writing skills.
Tell the boss something like this:
"I know that you are probably too busy to write up a letter of recommendation for me, and I wouldn't ask if it weren't vitally important. But if it would be OK, I can write you up a draft letter for you to review. I can give it to you in electronic format so that you can make whatever edits you need to. The whole process would take you very little time and it could really make all the difference in my job search. Can I send it to you tomorrow?"
For more information, including tips, samples, and templates, please check out our website: Letter Of Recommendation
