Faint praise, fake praise, and pasted phrases

One of the great parts of my job is that I get some requests for letters of recommendation. I love doing this, providing some measure of support even after a student has left my classroom.

I was on the other side, on the asking end of this exchange many years ago, when I was applying to graduate school.

Everything worked out fine, don’t you worry about me. Almost everybody took good care of me.

Still, I was struck by three extreme responses I received.

One professor said “no” to me. Surprised, I asked him why. He said “I don’t even remember your grade in my class….”

Understandable. It had been a few years.

“I got a B+,” I replied.

“If that’s true, the best I could do would be to damn you with faint praise.”

“If”? What do you mean, “if”?

Another professor said yes, and wrote the most lavish, gushing, overenthusiastically positive letter I could possibly imagine. I barely recognized the person he was writing about other than the name of the course I took from him. It was hard to believe that I was among the top one half of one percent of all the students he had ever taught in 30 years.

The third letter came from a marketing communications VP of the company I was working for. I didn’t report to him but worked frequently with his department. His asked me to put some notes together for him to review. By “review,” he meant copy and paste my notes verbatim on his letterhead and add his signature.

At the time, I didn’t realize how effective that approach is.

Referrals are more important than ever these days. Don’t be afraid to ask. Offer to put some notes together for the writer for reference (or to simply cut and paste… so make it good!). And when you can, offer to write one for them in return, perhaps on LinkedIn.

What do you think?

See you tomorrow!