Against Letters of Recommendation for Academic Jobs (updated)

“The practice of soliciting letters of recommendation for academic positions is both foolish and immoral.” So begins a post by University of Colorado philosophy professor Michael Huemer at What’s Wrong? Part of the problem, he says, stems from a tension in the role of the letter writer: The theory behind this practice is that the committee doesn’t have time to familiarize itself with the work of all the hundreds of candidates who are applying, so they rely on an outside person who is already familiar with that work. Thus, the letter writer is, in theory, acting as the agent of the committee, with the task of helping the committee select the best person. In reality, most letter writers conceive themselves as agents of the candidate, with the task of helping their friend (the candidate) get the position that the friend wants. The letters end up being useless, and the profession’s reliance on them has bad effects. Here are a few reasons why: (1) The probative value of “letters of recommendation” is approximately zero… It’s basically like asking, “Tell us whom you’re friends with, and let’s see who can get their friends to say the most exaggerated things about them.” (2) It contributes to a system in which the most coveted, scarce goods are distributed according to personal connections, rather than merit. (3) It creates incentives for people to curry favor with the “big names” in the profession and thereby causes more of this to happen… (4) It unfairly rewards people who are unashamed about bothering their friends for favors, while systematically disadvantaging people who are considerate of their friends’ time, or who tend to make friends with low-status people, or who tend to have unusually honest friends. (5) It is manipulative. It recruits outside people to do work for the committee… but without paying them or giving them any benefit in return… (6) It imposes an utterly unreasonable cost on the profession. [By requiring letters of recommendation, an institution offering one position] is imposing hundreds or thousands of man-hours of labor on the profession See the original post for elaboration on these points. Discussion welcome. UPDATE: The following is from David Boonin (Colorado): In case your readers are interested, here is the background on Mike’s blog post: our Center for Values and Social Policy is currently conducting a search for Visiting Fellows for the 2018-19 academic year. The ad is online here. We were originally going to require two letters of recommendation, but Mike sent me an e-mail suggesting that we drop that requirement and explaining why. I found his arguments pretty compelling, decided not to ask for letters this year as a result, and asked him to write his points up as a blog post. So a note to your readers: if you work in the values area and will be on paid leave (or retired) during part or all of the coming academic year, you can apply for one of our visiting fellowships without being unfairly disadvantaged for being someone who is considerate of your friends, or who tends to make friends with low-status people, or who tends to have unusually honest friends… What’s Wrong With Soliciting Letters of Recommendation? Posted on October 12, 2017 | 5 Comments interfolio-letters-recommendation A special guest post by Philosopher Michael Huemer (University of Colorado) I think the practice of soliciting letters of recommendation for academic positions is both foolish and immoral. Factual background: (a) Most jobs and fellowships in the academic world include “letters of recommendation” as an application requirement (see https://philjobs.org/). Usually, you have to have three of these letters sent to the job search committee or fellowship selection committee. (b) If you want to apply for that position, you call up three (or more) of your friends in the profession and ask them to write letters about you. Caveat: the letter writers must be professors, and if you yourself are a professor, then they must be of at least the same rank as yourself. (c) The letter-writer then writes an inflated letter about how great you are, with the degree of inflation depending on how the writer feels about you, as well as how comfortable that particular writer is with dishonesty. Often, they write in vague generalities. When they give specifics, it usually consists of describing and praising some particular work of yours that the committee could simply read and evaluate for themselves. (d) The selection committee then reads these letters and scrutinizes them for any sign of less-than-maximal enthusiasm (that being the standard for a “bad” letter). Sometimes the committee searches for ways of interpreting particular words of phrases as some sort of indirect speech act with a hidden, negative meaning. (e) The committee also takes into account the level of fame and the general status in the profession of the letter-writer. A letter from a big shot at a top-ten school counts for much more than a letter from a low-status professor. Of course, you can only get that letter if you are friends with the big shot or studied with the big shot. (f) The theory behind this practice is that the committee doesn’t have time to familiarize itself with the work of all the hundreds of candidates who are applying, so they rely on an outside person who is already familiar with that work. Thus, the letter writer is, in theory, acting as the *agent of* the committee, with the task of helping the committee select the best person. In reality, most letter writers conceive themselves as agents of *the candidate*, with the task of helping their friend (the candidate) get the position that the friend wants. Now, here is what I think is wrong with this whole practice: (1) The probative value of “letters of recommendation” is approximately zero, due to points (c) and (f) above. It’s basically like asking, “Tell us whom you’re friends with, and let’s see who can get their friends to say the most exaggerated things about them.” (2) It contributes to a system in which the most coveted, scarce goods are distributed according to personal connections, rather than merit. (3) It creates incentives for people to curry favor with the “big names” in the profession and thereby causes more of this to happen, due to point (e). For example, if one is at a conference, the incentive would be to chat up the high-status philosophers at the conference, rather than, say, talking to students or other low-status people. (4) It unfairly rewards people who are unashamed about bothering their friends for favors, while systematically disadvantaging people who are considerate of their friends’ time, or who tend to make friends with low-status people, or who tend to have unusually honest friends. (5) It is manipulative. It recruits outside people to do work for the committee (point (f)), but without paying them or giving them any benefit in return. Instead, the committee requires the candidate to presume upon the candidate’s personal relationships with others, to get these other people to do work for the committee. This is also why the resulting letters are evidentially worthless (point (f)). (6) It imposes an utterly unreasonable cost on the profession. Take the case of a fellowship (e.g., the NEH, ACLS, or NHC fellowships), for which there will generally be hundreds of applications, each with 3 letters, and each letter-writer is supposed to write a letter specific to that fellowship, for that year. In this case, the agency giving out the fellowship is imposing hundreds or *thousands of man-hours of labor* on the profession. Even if this improved the committee’s decision-making somewhat, this cost would not be worth it. But it is actually extremely doubtful that it improves their selection at all, rather than worsening it. It introduces great scope for irrelevant factors to affect the outcome; if the other information in the applications is reasonably probative, then introducing this large influence from irrelevant factors *worsens* the selection of candidates.