Writing a Recommendation Letter for a Student, Employee, College

A recommendation letter refers to a letter that one writes for other individual recommending them to a certain employment opportunity or an institution. This is a letter in which the employer wants to see the qualifications, capabilities and may be experiences you have had initially and them generally to see what the employee or the student are capable of through a third party. The individual writing the recommendation letter should be able to speak out the strengths, experiences and generally all the potentialities of the applicant.

There are different types of recommendation letter available and in this article, we will focus on three types namely;

Writing a recommendation for a student
Writing a recommendation letter for an employee
Writing a recommendation letter for a college

Writing a recommendation letter for an employee

Have you had challenges initially when writing a recommendation letter? Then I’ll teach you on how to go about it, just follow the steps listed below;

Context- This is the first step to follow when writing a recommendation letter for an individual. Here, say out who you are and the connection you have with the person you are recommending and most important, do not forget to include your position in the job.
Specifics and the potentiality of the employee- This is a very crucial step when writing a recommendation letter. Mention the strength and the potentialities of the employee. Say what the employee can do and how best he or she can perform in their assigned task according to your previous experience with him while at work. Go ahead further and say what the individual did at past that has made them turn out successful. For example, kelvin is an excellent programmer, he went ahead to design a program that would determine the payable amount a customer should pay when they purchase an item from our supermarket.

The general format of writing a recommendation letter

Writing a recommendation letter follows a specify format which isn’t much different from the format followed when writing an official letter only that it isn’t that much detailed as an official letter is though you can as well go ahead and include other details may be based on your professional stand but if you are a beginner, follow the steps listed below;

Begin the letter on the left side by including your details. This shows from whom the letter has come from. See examples below;

Write your name
Write your job title
Write the name of the company
Write the street of the company
Write the city, state and zip code
Lastly the date

The next step is the salutation. If it’s a personal recommendation letter say for example dear Charles and if it is a general letter write, to who it may concern.

Begin your letter now

Paragraph One: Introduction

In this paragraph, write the purpose of the letter and do not forget so say out the connection you have with the employee. Include the details about how you know the employee and how you are related to them.

Paragraph Two: Body

This paragraph carries the main idea of the recommendation letter and it might constitute two to three paragraphs. Mention all the details about the employee, i.e. their strengths, successes in their job and all the positive altitude of the employee.

Also, include all the positive achievements that the employee achieved while you were working with them. Note: it is recommendable not to mention about the negative side of the employee since this might make them loose their job.

Paragraph Three: Conclusion

For the conclusion, just give out further details in which you can be reached to give out more information and directives. You can leave your personal email address or phone number or both.

Paragraph Four: Closing

Rely on the general form of concluding an official letter.

Recommendation letter for a student

When writing a recommendation letter for a student, follow the steps outlined below;

Ask the student of their academic details and address them accordingly- ask them to tell you a short story concerning their academic journey and progress, any activities that they involved themselves in while at school. Generally, seek to get all the whereabouts of the student while at school. This information will help you know what information to include in their letter and in which area to put more emphasis.
Introduce yourself and your qualifications in the letter- include all information about yourself but stick to the main idea, do not enclose so much of your personal information. Mention also how you have interacted with the student if maybe you happen to be their teacher. Mention all the success that you witnessed while you were teaching the student.
Highlight students’ qualifications with examples- in your letter, say out the qualifications of the student and also try to relate the qualification of the student with the job opportunity that is being credited to them. Go ahead and give some examples of situations when a student emerged out a winner. For example, you can say: victor was a very excellent mathematician, He attended THE MANG’U Annual Mathematics contest and emerged the best student out of two thousand competitors involved.
Conclude your letter

Rely on the general form of concluding an official letter.

Note: use the same format above when writing a recommendation letter for a student, the detail that will change is only the content inside the text.

Recommendation letter for a college

Writing a recommendation letter for a college is just a similar step involved when writing a recommendation letter for a student. Just follow the steps highlighted above and make sure that you input the right details required.