Okay in this video I want to talk to you
about
uh professional references and
recommendations from
uh your professional references okay. So
to start with what are these things well
lots of times when you're applying for
school or you're applying for a job
you will put in a letter of
recommendation for someone who knows you
in a specific way whether it's
academically or
in terms of experience or prior
employment work that type of thing right.
Also you'll oftentimes list professional
references
those who didn't necessarily write a
recommendation for you
but these are individuals who the
employer or the school that you're
applying to
can call okay or contact otherwise to
seek out information about you okay lots
of times the
professional reference is more used in
terms of did the individual work here
that type of thing what was their work
product like all of those things.
A letter of recommendation can be somebody
who once again simply knew you in some
context and can
speak to how they knew you in that
context all right.
So lots of times the professional
references you just provide a list of
names and contact information
with a letter of recommendation you have
to undertake some work to actually get
the letter from them
or more common today in times that they
know what's coming and then they look
for
the opportunity to submit a letter of
recommendation on your half
electronically
right through some system that they
receive a link or an email that type of
thing
all right. So to start with you know
identify
upfront who is going to be your
professional references
and for what reason right academic
references are great but
if you're applying for a job that an
employer is going to want some
level of work references as well or
exclusively right they might care more
about that
if you're applying to graduate school or
something like that the academic
references
are more important or go further okay.
Now before you list
anybody as a reference right simply a
name of someone to reference
uh you from or to put in their name in a
system that sends them a request for a
letter of recommendation
you should get permission from that
person right.
Give them notice that you're going to
use them as a reference or ask
them would they be willing to submit a
letter of recommendation on your behalf.
Usually people will say yes okay
sometimes if the person doesn't know you
well enough that type of thing
will say I don't feel comfortable doing
that because I don't know you well
enough right I can't put my name out
there
on your behalf if if we don't have that
type of relationship.
Another thing to consider is make
certain you have that nature of that
level of relationship or
that the person won't be hesitant again
to
put their name out there on your behalf
to endorse you in that way
okay but once you've secured that
information you've let them know and
they've agreed to either write a letter
of recommendation or serve as a
reference
particularly for the letter of
recommendation you need to provide them
information but that's important for the
reference too because
if they are contacted they need to know
critical information about you if they
know nothing about you it's not going to
be a
very effective reference right so the
things you will want to provide them
is you know educational background or
other qualifications
uh for the position that type of thing
in school generally it's your
school and your major GPA sometimes that
type of thing how you did in school
where you're living now you know whether
you're locally that's just something
that tends to come up in the form of a
conversation
but also let them know the school you're
applying to or the position or company
that you're applying to
so they don't mess that up right because
nothing's more embarrassing than that
I will say i've seen where individuals
before
received letters of recommendation and
things like that for schools
and it was sent to the wrong school
right they were not actually applying to
that school
the information was um was messed up so
anyway that being said
uh you're also going to include any
information they need to show that you
are qualified for the position that
starts with your resume
but can be any other information that's
relevant to them.
Now with a reference that's all you're
going to need with a letter of
recommendation the person has to put pen
the paper
and opine on you it is helpful if you
write out a recommendation for yourself
uh in you know in their person right in
third person
uh and provide that to them simply as a
template that they can work from
right that takes the uh obligation offer
them to dig through your information.
One usually it's a better recommendation
but two they'll
modify it a little bit sometimes to make
it better sometimes they cut it back a
little bit
but oftentimes they'll just use that
completely right they'll barely even
modify it and they'll submit that
recommendation
on your behalf because again it it
serves your purpose so take some time
write up your own recommendation if
you're going to have multiple people
submitting letters of recommendation
you're going to have to write multiple
letters of recommendation
as templates for yourself you certainly
don't want to send the same one and have
it submitted in duplicate that will not
help you during the process
okay. So keep all of that in mind provide
that information
and there you go that's how you handle
the professional reference letter of
recommendation situation scenario.