Writing Your Own Letter of Recommendation?!

[DomoniqueH]

My externship instructor offered to some of us letters of recommendation. I just contacted him so that I could take him up on this offer and he told me to just write the letter and he'll sign it. This completely threw me for a loop but I just finished the letter. Has anyone had to do this before? Also, I'm applying for multiple jobs, do I need to include the date on the letter? How important is it that I address it to a specific job? As I want to apply to numerous jobs so I cant ask him to sign multiple ones.

[BrendanO, MSN, RN]

I had a professor ask me to draft some language they could include in my rec. I didn't; it felt weird to me. Maybe I ended up with a worse rec, I'll never know.

Generally, I don't think it's a problem for a rec to be generic and not targeted towards a position, unless the recommender has a special connection to the place you're applying (i.e. same area of research, they used to work there, etc.). I never customized my recs for my employees unless there was a very specific reason to.

[Buyer beware, BSN]

Yes he can sign multiple letters.

Your instructor sounds like a real go-getter asking the students to draft their own recommendation letters.

What an efficient way to defer this mundane task so as to save time to do something really important like conducting more nursing research to determine the most efficacious duration of time to wash your hands before autoclaving them.

Just remember. When you write the letter remember to use all the "buzz" words and phrases like: "compassionate, empathetic, altruistic, people person, always wanted, Florence Nightingale, Crimean War (optional) mother is a nurse, dad too, also sister, selfless, Mother Teresa, time management, good at critical thinking, Clara Barton, favorite book: "Lives of the Saints," like to work all holidays, weekends and most family member's birthdays, to include wakes, funerals and memorial gatherings, loved statistics...things like that.

Admissions directors eat this stuff up so go to town.