Biophysical Society Bulletin | February 2020

Career Development

What to Expect in a Letter of Recommendation Dear Molly Cule,

in-depth analysis and perspective of the impact of your work. Anecdotal comments help to assure the reader that the writer actually knows you and has observed your work. Comments on the significance and impact of your work help the reader to understand how well you function as a scientist, at least in your field. At your career stage, it is important for the letter to provide enough detail to make clear that you have possession of and are driving your thesis projects. You need to be more than a minor player carrying out experimental procedures. Letter writers will also make comments about you personally, such as how well you work with others or as part of a team, and about your communication and leadership skills. They will often give a ranking or comparison to your peer group (“top 5 percent of students in the 25 years that I’ve been on faculty,” or “among the best two or three of the 30 graduate students I’ve trained”) and give their evaluation of your potential to contribute to the future lab. Hopefully the letter writer will customize each letter for the specific reader — you should provide information about the recipient. Generally, their web- page is sufficient. If the letter is for a fellowship application, it needs to address the specific questions asked by the funding agency and describe why you are appropriate for the award. You can see that the letter writer needs to know you pretty well. The reference should be a person familiar with your re- search and your performance in the lab. A course instructor’s letter is generally not as informative because the classroom is a different environment and situation than the laboratory. Provide them with your updated CV and a research state- ment, if available. They will need this information to talk about you (your undergraduate school and major, all your publications including abstracts, presentations, activities out- side of the lab, etc.). Your research statement should describe the research you have done as well as what you intend to do, or at least the directions you wish to pursue and the training you wish to seek. If you are asking for a letter of support for a fellowship, provide the proposal or at least the specific aims page so that the letter writer can comment on the project. I think the rank and position of the letter writer should be as high as possible, but make sure they actually will provide the letter. It is not uncommon for references to be late or not to deliver because they are busy and good letters take time to write. It should convey a sense of enthusiasm about you as a scientist and your capabilities. A “lukewarm” letter is not

I’m a fourth-year PhD student and preparing to apply for postdoctoral positions. I’m confused about what I should consider in asking professors to write reference letters for me. What should I expect from these letters? Whom should I ask and what informa- tion should I provide to them? Does it matter that they be all professors, work in the same field as me, or that they know me and my research very well? Signed, Career Builder

Dear Career, I think it is useful to consider these questions from the per- spectives of the people writing and reading the letters. The people who ask for your references obviously want to know if you are a person they want working in their labs and will contribute to their research programs. They will be investing a good portion of their grant or start-up funds to support you and they need to know your capabilities as a scientist techni- cally, intellectually, and creatively. They want to know if you can work independently and as a team member, how well you work with others, about your communication and leader- ship skills, and about your long-term career goals. They can extract a lot of this information from your CV and cover letter or personal statement, but several of their questions will be answered by your reference letters. As you move on in your career, the reference letters should give the reader an idea of your potential to develop and carry out your own significant research program. Eventually when you are an independent investigator, they should describe your standing and reputa- tion in the field. The duty of the letter writer is to state who they are and their relationship to you, which provides the basis for what they say about your capabilities. They will describe your scientif- ic contributions and achievements in general and hopefully describe how you developed your projects and accomplished your science to achieve results. A great letter will give an

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