A recommendation letter says how you know the person, gives two or three things you saw them do, and says plainly that you recommend them and for what. One page is enough. The examples carry the letter: "she is hard-working" tells a reader nothing, and "she rebuilt our stock system over one summer, on top of her own job" tells them a lot.
Write only what you know first-hand and believe. Your name is on it.
Before you write
Ask the person for four things. It saves you an hour and makes a better letter.
- What it is for. The job advert, the course page or the award criteria.
- Their CV, so your dates and job titles match theirs.
- What they hope you will cover. They know which part of their work you saw best.
- The deadline and how to send it. Some letters are uploaded to a portal, some go to a named person, some are handed to the applicant.
Then ask yourself whether you can recommend them honestly. A lukewarm letter does more harm than none. If you cannot, say so kindly and early, so they have time to ask someone else. How to say no politely has wording for that.
Some employers have a policy on who may give references and what they may say. Check yours before you write on company paper.
The structure
- Who you are and how you know them. Your role, theirs, how long you worked together and in what way: their manager, their teacher, a colleague.
- The recommendation, up front. One sentence that names what you are recommending them for.
- Two or three examples. What they did and what came of it, one short paragraph each. Pick examples that match what the job or course asks for.
- How they work. One small, true detail about what they are like to work with: how they take feedback, how they treat people, what they do when something goes wrong.
- The close. Recommend them again in one line and say how you can be reached.
If you know who will read it, use their name. If you do not, "Dear hiring manager" or "Dear admissions committee" is better than "To whom it may concern".
Examples
These people are invented. Yours should have your own facts and nothing else.
For an employee, from their manager
Dear hiring manager,
I am the operations manager at Penrose Logistics, and Marcus Bell reported to me as a shift coordinator for three years. I recommend him for the warehouse supervisor role without hesitation.
Marcus took over a night shift that was missing its dispatch deadline about once a week. He changed the order in which lorries were loaded and wrote a one-page checklist for the handover between shifts. Within two months the late dispatches had stopped, and the day shift adopted his checklist.
He also trained every new starter on nights. Three of them are now coordinators themselves.
When something goes wrong, Marcus tells you straight away and arrives with a suggestion. I would hire him again.
You are welcome to call me on 01632 960 114.
Yours sincerely,
Judith Crane
For a student, from a teacher
Dear admissions committee,
I taught Layla Haddad chemistry for two years at Westbrook Sixth Form, and I am glad to recommend her for your pharmacy degree.
Layla is the student who stays to find out why an experiment failed. When her titration results came out wrong in the first term, she repeated the practical in her lunch break, found that a burette was leaking, and wrote up both sets of results with the cause. I now use that write-up as an example for new classes.
She ran the school's science club for younger pupils for a year, planning a session every week and turning up to all of them.
She asks good questions, takes correction without fuss and helps the people around her. I expect her to do well.
Yours faithfully,
Robert Finch, Head of Chemistry
For a colleague, as a peer
Dear Ms Varga,
I worked alongside Ines Moreau for four years in the support team at Callow Software, and I recommend her for the team lead role.
Ines was the person the rest of us asked. She wrote the guide to our billing system that the whole team still uses, and she took the hardest customer calls without being asked. When I joined, she sat with me for my first week of calls.
She would be a fair and steady lead.
Kind regards,
Pete Hallam
A short character reference
For a volunteer role, a tenancy or a club, a few honest lines are often all that is asked for.
To the volunteer coordinator,
I have known Grace Lindqvist for six years as a neighbour and as a fellow member of the Harbour Road allotment society, where she has been treasurer since 2023.
Grace is reliable and careful with other people's money. She kept the society's accounts, chased the late rents politely, and handed over clean books each year. She is patient with people, including the awkward ones.
I am happy to recommend her for the role and to answer any questions.
Femi Oyelaran
What to leave out
- Adjectives with nothing behind them. "Dedicated", "motivated", "a team player". Give the example and let the reader choose the adjective.
- Things you did not see. If you only know their work from one project, write about that project.
- Praise you do not mean. "The best I have ever worked with" is worth writing only if it is true.
- Private details. Health, age, family, religion and the like do not belong in a recommendation.
- Faults dressed up as praise. If you have a real reservation, leave the subject alone or decline to write the letter.
- A second page. A reader with a pile of applications reads one page properly.
If you are asked to draft your own
Busy referees sometimes say "write it yourself and I'll sign it". If you are the one applying, write it in plain, factual language, stick to things your referee saw, and send it to them as a draft to change. It has to be something they are willing to put their name to, so leave the warm judgements for them to add.
Writing it with Hemmingway
The recommendation letter generator is a short form: who the letter is about, how you know them, what it is for, and the two or three things you saw them do. Hemmingway writes the letter from those and nothing else. If you give it no examples, it has none to use, so the examples are where to spend your time.
You get one letter, not a set of options, and in the app you can save it as a PDF to sign. Read it as the person whose name is at the bottom. Take out any line you would not say to the reader's face, check dates and job titles against the CV, and send it yourself. There is a free trial with no card needed, and the plans are on the pricing page.
If you are on the other side, applying for the job, see how to write a cover letter.
Try HemmingwayDownload the app
Common questions
What should a recommendation letter include?
How you know the person and for how long, a clear statement that you recommend them and for what, two or three specific examples of what they did, a line on what they are like to work with, and how to contact you. Keep it to one page.
How long should a recommendation letter be?
One page, or roughly 200 to 400 words. A character reference for a volunteer role or a tenancy can be shorter. If the organisation gives a form or a word limit, follow that.
What is the difference between a recommendation letter and a reference letter?
The two names are often used for the same thing. When people do draw a line, a recommendation letter is written for one particular job, course or award, and a reference letter is more general and can be used more than once.
How do you start a recommendation letter?
With who you are and how you know the person: your role, theirs, and how long you worked together. Follow it straight away with the recommendation itself, so the reader knows in the first paragraph where you stand.
Can I say no to writing a recommendation letter?
Yes. If you do not know their work well enough, or cannot recommend them honestly, it is kinder to say so early than to write a weak letter. Thank them for asking and suggest they choose someone who saw more of their work.