The "Letters of Recommendation" are one of the most fundamental aspects of your application package for positions. They are also one area of the application process that seems to be the least in your control. The letters speak to your abilities as a mathematician, your accomplishments in your thesis studies, and as a teacher. As such, you are who you are. But what you can do, is make an effort to see that the letters put you in the best light, and have the most impact.

This page discusses the "mechanics" of getting your Letters of Recommendation requested & sent out.

We also offer some opinions over how to make them count the most. Some of what is recommended may be too late to worry about in your final year of graduate school, which simply emphasizes the need to start early. Other recommendations are just practical knowledge, and you can mind these points now.

If you have questions or doubts about who you might ask to "write for you", talk to a faculty mentor, or to Kari Dueball. They may have some solid advice to help in making your decision.

The Mechanics

Aspects of the "mechanics" are discussed on the Letters of Recommendation page in the Graduate Studies website.

You will need either three or four Letters of Recommendation: typically two or three addressing your research accomplishments and prospects, and one or two addressing your teaching ability and accomplishments. See below for a discussion of each of these types of letters.

You must contact your prospective letter writers as soon as possible, and give them time to write the letters. Often faculty are busy at exactly the same time you need them to "drop everything", and write your letter. If you have a November deadline, then request the letters in October. Also, when you ask for a "Research Letter", be sure to ask if the Professor would like to discuss your thesis work with you. If you are asking for a "Teaching Letter", ask if they are available to sit in on one of your classes, and so can write from experience, having viewed your classroom technique.

There are two possibilities for the next step: either the school you are applying to uses the MathJobs.org services, or they don't.

If the school you are applying to uses MathJobs.org, then after the writer has agreed to write for you, you will submit their name to the MathJobs website, and it will automatically send an email to the letter-writer stating that you have listed the person as a letter-writer, and provide the password for uploading the letter directly from a PC. This is by far the easiest for the writer, as once you have written one such letter for MathJobs, the writer's name and data are on file, and it is almost trivial to upload subsequent letters for other students (and postdocs as well.) Typically today, almost all Research Math Departments use the MathJobs.org services for their jobs search.

If the school you are applying to does not use MathJobs.org services, then the letters of recommendation must be sent to each school independently. This means more work, for everyone.

Step 1: The letters must be sent or given to Kari Dueball, Assistant Director of Graduate Studies, at the address here.

You may need to monitor the situation, by asking Kari Dueball if all of your letters have arrived yet, and perhaps give a "gentle nudge" to those asked who are slow to submit the letter. Sometimes, the letter-writer simply forget, in the rush of other end-of-terms duties. Sometimes, the writer is puzzled about what to write, and an offer to "further discuss" what you have done can be most helpful.

Step 2: You must make up mailing labels for the schools you are applying to, those not using MathJobs.org, so that the letters can be sent to each school when they have all accumulated in your file in the Assistant Director's office. In other words, Darlette will put the labels you provide on the envelopes to be sent out, but will not address the envelopes themselves.

Preparing the mailing labels is one of the most tiresome tasks in this whole process. The optimum strategy would be for some graduate student to prepare one giant list of labels for all the jobs listed in the "Employment Information in the Mathematical Sciences" (EIMS), and then "sell" them to the other graduate students - say for covering your class for a week or something. I am not aware that this solution has ever been implemented. But do discuss this among yourselves, as some form of collaboration on preparing the mailing labels sure seems to make the most sense.

Step 3: After the first batch of letters have been sent out, hopefully before the winter break in mid-December, you may decide to send out more. You simply provide the Assistant Director's office with the additional mailing labels for the new applications.

Timing

After you turn in your mailing labels, and all of your letters have been received in the Assistant Director's office, then it takes perhaps a week for your letters to arrive at the school to which you are applying.

For a Research Postdoctoral position, the deadline for receiving the "Completed Application" is typically December 31, although some schools request the file be completed earlier in December, or possibly even in November! The point is that the Faculty Search Committee for postdocs may meet before the Holiday vacation, or just after it. At UIC, the postdoc Search Committee meets after the Holiday break, in early January.

If the search committee meets and they do not have your letters of recommendation, then they have a difficult time deciding that you are the person they really want. This is one advantage of MathJobs.org, as your application file can be viewed even when it is only "Partially Completed", and sometimes enough letters have been received to flag your application as "very interesting". For example, at UIC, the applications on MathJobs.org start being viewed already in October!

For Teaching Positions, the timing of the search process is rather different. If you are planning to make interviews at the Mathematical Sciences Employment Center at the Annual Meeting in January, then it would be advantageous to have your file completed before you conduct your interviews.

Otherwise, many offers of Teaching Positions are not made until mid-Winter or even later in the Spring. The search committees at these schools may meet throughout the winter semester, and so you may get a surprise phone call or email "late n the game" from some school that is interested in your application. This is why it can be good strategy to monitor the jobs posting in the "EIMS" every week, until you have secured an offer and signed the offer letter. You can always apply to such a position, up until they state that the position has been filled; of course, it is best to email the contact name at the school to inquire whether they are still considering candidates, and would they be interested in your application, before going to the trouble of submitting another.

One other point concerning timing. If you are going to attend the Annual Meeting, perhaps to give a "10 minute talk" in one of the Contributed Talks Sessions, or a "20 minute talk" in a Special Session, then it is best to have your file completed before that! This is your opportunity to present your work with a prospective future colleague in the audience. That is, often members of the postdoc Search Committees will make a point of attending the talks of candidates who have been flagged as "very interesting" in the preliminary ranking of the Search Committee review of applicants.

Finally, if you have your sights set on a postdoc at one of the Research Institutes, such as the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute in Berkeley, or the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, the application deadline is December 1.

The Research Letters

Letter #1: The first Research Letter of Recommendation must be from your Thesis Advisor.

Letter #2: The second Research Letter of Recommendation is typically from another faculty member in the MSCS department who is very familiar with your thesis research. Your Thesis Advisor may suggest this person, or it may be someone whom you consider a "second advisor" or faculty mentor. The key consideration, is the person can offer a strong assessment of your work to date, and about your abilities. It also helps if the writer of this letter is a senior faculty member, or a very well-known researcher. The point is to have the letter reinforce the letter from your Thesis Advisor, as to your talents.

Letter #3: The third Research Letter of Recommendation may be difficult to obtain, or there may be an obvious choice. One possible option is to request this letter from a well-known researcher in your field at another university, who happens to be familiar with your work. For example, the person may have visited the MSCS Department to work with a faculty member here, and spoken with you about your work, and possibly heard you speak in seminar. Or possibly, this person heard you speak in seminar at another school, or at a professional meeting in your field, such as an invited talk at a Special Session at one of the frequent AMS Regional Meetings. Discuss this possibility with your Thesis Advisor, of course. Alternately, if there is a third MSCS faculty member who is very familiar with your thesis work, you may ask this person to also write in support of your job applications.

The discussion highlights one of the advantages of giving seminar talks, and talks at professional meetings in your field. The exposure in seminar can help the faculty learn more about your research. The opportunity to speak in meetings makes you better known to colleagues at other universities, both in case you may want to ask one of them to write in support of your application, or possibly to suggest your name as an interesting candidate to the postdoc Search Committee at their own universities.

The Teaching Letters

You need at least one Teaching Letter, or possibly two, if you are applying for Teaching Positions.

Many applicants neglect this aspect of their application, as "they are researchers". That may well be, but you will be hired to research & teach, unless you are fortunate enough to secure a postdoc at one of the research institutes in the US. The Teaching letter attest to the fact that you can fulfill this duty, preferably in a highly satisfactory manner. If you are applying for a Teaching Position, then you should try to get two excellent Teaching Letters, as the decision to hire will likely be strongly based on your skills and future prospects as a teacher.

Generally, requesting a Teaching Letter can be a daunting task, as your TA duties may not always seem strongly appreciated while you are working on your graduate studies. Whoever you ask, you can help make this reference letter specific to your skills by giving the letter-writer copies of your evaluations, lesson plans if you have them, and a copy of your Résumé with the items pertaining to teaching highlighted for emphasis. If you have prepared your Teaching Portfolio, then you can share this with the person who you ask to write for you. It will impress the letter-writer as well as the interview committee! You should also suggest that the letter-writer visit your class to make the recommendation more immediate.

A typical Teaching Letter, seen too often especially in applications for research postdocs,, may sometimes consist of a report from someone in charge of teaching duties, who writes that you had excellent class evaluation scores, and can say no more, as this person has never seen you teach, and is not familiar with any other aspects of your teaching efforts. This is what you want to avoid if you are hoping to obtain a Teaching Position at a school where Teaching is emphasized.

Letter #1: The first Teaching Letter of Recommendation may be from the Associate Head for Instruction, or some other faculty member who has watched you teach, or has some knowledge of your abilities as a teacher. Again, the more the person is familiar with your teaching skills, the better the letter.

Letter #2: Obtaining a second Teaching Letter of Recommendation requires that you have made a point of having your classes observed by more than one faculty member, or possibly you have been part of a special teaching program (such as ESP) and someone from that program can write about your contributions.