Signatory Customer Service Recommendation Letter Made Easy

Signatory customer service recommendation letter

Hello, this is Ella from ApplicationUK. Joining me today is Stella, our senior consultant with more than 5 years experience helping international students who want to study in the UK. So, for the past few months we've had many questions from students asking about the recommendation letter, one of the most important documents you will need in your master's application. Therefore, today we will be talking about that. E: Hello, Stella. S: Hi, morning. E: So, what is a recommendation letter and where, or from whom, can students get that recommendation letter? S: A recommendation letter, also known as a reference letter, can be issued from your previous employer, and also your tutor and teacher that can recommend an individuals work. I think here we are really talking about academic reference letters, so it is a recommendation that highlights students academic history and also sometimes career goals as well. E: So, how many reference letters should students get? S: For postgraduate applications, all universities require 2 academic reference letters. E: Does that mean that the recommendation letters have to be academic ones? S: I think for mature students, and if, lets say students had work experience, particularly like if they have had more than 1 year full-time work experience, 1 academic reference, and also 1 work reference will be sufficient. E: So, the next question is, some students, some people, say that if students have more than 2 reference letters that would be better. Because it will give the university more of a well-rounded picture of the student, and it will be especially helpful if you want to apply for a scholarship. What do you think? S: I think generally universities only ask for 2 academic reference letters. And, if the case is that you think having a third one or fourth one is going to give you the extra bonus to add on your application, you can always obviously send a separate email after your application is submitted to the admission team. However, having said that, I think certain universities clearly say they only want 2 reference letters, for example, LSE on their website says you should not submit more than 2 reference letters. So it is not the case of the more, the merrier. E: So, about the title of the referees, how important is that? And, lets say, if the students can get the recommendation letter from someone higher ranking, does it mean that their recommendation letters will be stronger? S: I personally don't really think that is the case. Because, lets say compared two reference letters, you have one is your personal tutor, probably the other one is from the Dean. The personal tutor one, because he or she may have had more interaction with the students, obviously the reference letter is stronger in terms of the content in comparison of the general one. So, in that case, the personal tutor one probably works better than the other one. So, it is not the case that the higher the position is, the more value you will have in the reference letter. E: So, does it mean that relevancy is more important? S: Yes, correct. E: So, I think that is very important for students to bear in mind. So you will require someone who knows about you, who is relevant to you to give recommendation for you. It will be better than just someone higher ranking, but that doesn't know very well about you, because they are going to say something very general. S: Definitely. E: So, how long should a recommendation letter be, and what sort of information should be included in that? S: Normally, I think the reference letter I've seen is generally about 1 page, 2 pages max, I would say. And then, I do actually have a reference letter here, a good reference letter here as an example. Generally you will cover your referee's experience with you, for example; is this your tutor? The one I've got, this referee particularly mentioned this student is hard working and is very highly motivated, and also she was among the top 5 in her section, among 104 students enrolled which is impressive. I think also the referee also mentions that she took time to ensure that the student submitted excellent work and very impressive. So I think this is one of the things that they need to cover. Another thing is, the student's potential because at the end of the day, you are using this reference letter to submit a postgraduate application. So, at the end of this reference letter, the referee mentioned: "I highly recommend this student to your MSc programme". Because she has this, this, this potential, and she can be a good and successful student . E: So, I think in that sample recommendation letter one thing we need to point out is that it is quite specific and the referees give specific examples. So he does not just say, it is good, the person is good. S: Hard-working. When you say good, I mean, define good? E: That's it, that's the thing. S: If you say the student is hard-working and then give examples, that will be really really good. E: Right okay. So, that's something about the content of the recommendation letter, how about the presentation of the letter? S: Presentation wise I think generally with reference letters. I've got this one so normally you will need the university title and then the university address and contact details. And then, date that the referee issued the reference letter. And, also obviously, the referee's contact details and title. Obviously, you need the referee to sign on the back of the page as well. So I think what we will do is, we will list some samples on our website and our social media as well for students that want to have a read at the format of the reference letter. You can just check our Facebook later. E: So, be sure to check on our website and our Facebook page. The next question comes from mostly mature students. So, you know for mature students, they have graduated from a long time ago and they at some point just want to go back to university to do a master's degree, but then after some time they might have lost contact with their lecturers. Then when they get back to their lecturers, they may forget them, in which case, how can they get a good quality recommendation letter? S: That's actually a really good question. Imagine this tutor had 104 just in that one year, and then after a couple of years. It's just very normal that they don't even remember you. In my case, I was a mature student myself. So, when I contact my lecturer I attached my transcript, and I contacted those tutors that I had a high score, so I said, you know, I participated, I did this seminar and also I was in the module of this, this, this which was taught by you. I achieved this score, and I really did enjoy that. I'm planning to apply to this university on this course, and there is a strong connection with this, I think that you, I really need your help to give me a reference letter in support of my application. I think that will help, and just give them some help in terms of academic, give them some samples. Try to remind them of the experience. E: So, what you are saying is trying to tactfully give them some information that you want to be put in. S: Spoon feed them. E: Spoon feed them a bit! In a good way, in a careful way. The next question comes from international students in certain countries, I won't name the country obviously, but it seems to be a common practice for students in certain countries to write their own recommendation letter and then just give it to the lecturer or the manager to approve and give them the signature. What do you think about that? S: It's not right! To start with. No, I think I kind of get it because if your tutor or lecturer English is not their first language, and as a second language. If the language ability is not quite sufficient to issue a reference letter in English, so it's going to be really difficult to do that. So in that case, I do recommend still ask your referee to issue the reference letter in their own language and then just go to, just find a certified translation company. Then get them to translate that for you. So, and then when you do your application, submit both documents to the university. Just in case if the university do contact your referee to verify some of the details, some of the content at least it is valid. E: Yeah, I see. I think that is something that students should take notice of as well, because it is not applicable in all countries. S: No, definitely not, no. E: For example, some of the European countries. But in America they don't really accept that. It can be risky as well, because if the lecturers don't write the recommendation letters for you, then sometimes they don't remember what is included in there. So it can be risky for you when the university is actually contacting the person about the information in there, so you definitely should take notice of that. The next question, some students when they ask their referees to give recommendation letters, sometimes those lecturers or those managers are so busy they may take a rather long time sometimes up to 4 weeks. The students just wonder whether or not they can submit or apply anyway, without a recommendation letter. S: Yeah, definitely. That's the common practice actually in the UK. So, when students generally are asking for a reference letter, instead of giving you a written reference letter they will just say you can just put down my name and contact details to the university you want to apply to, and they will contact me directly. In fact, I think University of Warwick and also University College London, these are two of the universities that only accept a reference that was issued directly by the referee. E: Oh really? S: So, if you do have a written reference you submit as the supporting document for your application, they won't even accept that. E: Oh I see. I think that's a very interesting point that you just mentioned because we have some questions from UK based students as well. S: Mainly international students. E: So they're international students but based in the UK, studying undergraduate degrees in the UK. When they want to go on to do another master's in the UK, they usually will ask their lecturers to give a reference and then the lecturers will say "Yeah, okay" "Yeah, sure". It's kind of confusing for the students! S: Yeah, as long as you get the verbally okay or email just saying sure, put down my details. E: The thing is, the students will be rather confused. They don't know whether or not the lecturer's mean they will write the recommendation letter for you. S: I think as long as you get verbally, like if the referee verbally mentions that's okay, or email just replying to your request saying sure, then that means that you've got their permission already just to put down their details on the application form. And then, whenever they receive the email they will issue the reference letter. E: So, you are saying, that if they only allow you to put their name down in their CV for example, and it's not like they're going to write the letter for you unless they are.. S: Specific, yeah. Unless they are saying specific things. I don't really think. Because imagine like you know your referees, sorry tutors are normally are very busy, so they don't know who's really serious about applying for university and who's not. So they will only issue those ones that when they have received a request. E: Okay. Well, thank you very much Stella. S: No problem. E: And, thank you very much for listening and watching today's video. If you have any questions about recommendation letters, or anything else related to studying for a master's in the UK, do feel free to contact us via info@applicationuk.com. We also have included some sample recommendation letters on our website, so be sure to check out the website at www.applicationuk.com. Thank you very much, and see you next time! S: Thank you.