Pick Your Recommenders Wisely

Not all recommendations are created equal. Make sure you choose recommenders whose assurances will carry the right weight with your prospective employer.

Imagine yourself in your potential employer's place and ask yourself, "What would I need to know about this person to feel confident about hiring them? Who could give me that information?"

Most employers want to know how you have conducted yourself in previous jobs. Obviously, your current or former supervisors are the best sources of this information. Colleagues are generally not as good a choice because their comments carry less authority than a supervisor's do, but they can also be useful, especially if the person is someone who comes across as honest, objective, and professional.

If you're a recent graduate and lack previous professional experience, your professors can provide helpful recommendations about the qualities that employers expect in professional staff – your intelligence and ability to apply knowledge to practical tasks (like getting a paper written), your ability to work with others, to focus on an assignment, etc. A professor who has worked with you in small classes, seminars, or on individual projects can give a more specific assessment of your abilities than one who only knows you from large lecture classes can.

Your professors are also the ideal recommenders if you're applying to a position where intellectual ability is important. In fact, employers in these fields will usually specifically request that at least one recommendation come from a professor.

People who supervised or trained you in volunteer work can also be helpful recommenders, but their comments will need to be concrete and specific to be convincing. There will often be an assumption on the potential employer's part that a volunteer supervisor would say good things about anyone who volunteered their time for him or her, even if they didn't do much.

HR personnel are generally not good choices as recommenders unless you work in HR. They can confirm things like your dates of employment and salary (information which potential employers will try to confirm with HR departments anyway), but are not usually seen as good sources of information about what goes on in other sections of a company or organization. They may also have legal or ethical restrictions that would make it awkward for them to provide a recommendation.

Only list family members and friends as professional recommenders if you absolutely have to (for example, if you worked in a family-owned business, and a relative was your supervisor). For obvious reasons, such recommendations just don't carry much weight with employers.

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