What Not to Write in a Recommendation Letter

Certain cautions are in order before you write an employee a recommendation letter. When you write a recommendation letter do not make statements of this kind. Do not:

• Provide details that you may not know for sure if they were outside of the confines of the employee’s employment with your firm. For example, don’t name the company for which you believe the employee went to work. You may not know if the employee was ever employed there. You were told by Mark that he had accepted a job as a supervisor. Your recommendation letter should not provide potentially conflicting information that might cause later problems for the employee in his or her job search.

• Predict the future. The only performance that you can remark on is the performance that you experienced while the employee worked for you. Anything else is crystal ball gazing and inappropriate for a recommendation letter. This is inappropriate: “I am sure that you will receive the same exemplary performance from Mark that we did when he worked for Alcon Tool.” Times change; lives change; unpredictable events occur. To you or a potential employer ten years down the road, this is unverifiable.

• Provide personal, protected, or confidential personnel information of any kind such as salary, social security number, race, religion, marital status, family composition, medical problems or age. (An actual recommendation letter I once received said that the supervisor was sure that Betty would improve her attendance and be an excellent employee now that her divorce was final, her childcare problems had been resolved, and her former husband had moved out-of-state. I’m sure that the supervisor meant this recommendation in a positive way.)

• Provide anything other than factual information that you can directly, with personal experience, report.

A copy of the recommendation letter, after review by Human Resources, should be placed in the employee’s personnel file.

Recommendation Letter Sample Write a Recommendation Letter for a Valued Employee

Looking for a recommendation letter sample to use as a guide when you write your own recommendation letters? This recommendation letter sample is for a valued employee who moves on to a new opportunity. You are invested in helping the employee advance his or her career.

Employees must leave your organization for reasons that can include spouse relocation, graduation from college, family needs, and opportunities that your organization cannot offer. Especially for an employee whom you have valued, a recommendation letter will assist the employee to obtain his or her next job.

Written on company stationery, with a clearly printed address and telephone, and the recommender's name and job title, the recommendation letter provides a sometimes needed boost to a job searcher's credentials.

You will want your Human Resources office to review your recommendation letter before you send it. Some organizations have policies that require this oversight; others ask employees not to write recommendation letters at all. They prefer that all recommendations come from Human Resources. Know your organization's policies before writing a recommendation letter.