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Asking someone working in an elite program who graduated the same year with for a job letter?

**Updated: I've corrected the post's title and my response – see 1st comment (and underlined).

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

I am a pre-tenure TT faculty member in a regional state university in the United States. I would like to get a position at an R1, a good/elite liberal arts college, or a regional state school in a different region.

I have a colleague in my sub-specialty, who thinks highly of my work, whom I speak to from time to time about our work. We trade drafts and discuss them, and sometimes we meet up at conferences. We got our PhD's in the exact same year, from different institutions. However, this colleague is a TT faculty member in an elite research program. They might be tenured at this point.

My question: would it be advisable or not advisable to ask for a letter of recommendation from my colleague when I go on the job market?

Hmm, I'm not sure. Personally, I don't know if hiring committees are even likely to "put 2 and 2 together" and realize that you graduated the same year–unless of course your friend mentions it in their letter. Then again, maybe they would. In any case, I'm not sure how this would look, particularly given that the person seems to be something of a friend.

Do any readers have any helpful insights here? It would be especially good to hear from people who have hired at the kinds of institutions the OP wants a job at!

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7 responses to “Asking someone working in an elite program who graduated the same year with for a job letter?”

  1. Circe

    Am I being dense? The quote says “We got our PhD’s in the exact same year, from different institutions.”

    Reply
  2. Marcus Arvan

    @Circe: I apologize for the mistake, and have updated the post accordingly.

    Reply
  3. Circe

    BTW, if the issue if just about sameness of year of graduation, then I don’t see a problem.

    Reply
  4. OP

    OP here. My concern was that we basically at the same stage in our careers (same phd year, same number of pubs, I think we’re even the exact same age), except that they are now tenured and I am not. (They also probably have more of a reputation than me, which is why I thought about asking them for a recommendation.) I don’t know if having a letter from someone who is basically just a peer is typically done or looked down on.

    Reply
  5. The Real SLAC Prof

    OP: I don’t think it matters. While hiring committee members vary in how much they rely on letters, I think it is fair to make a few generalizations:
    1. Letters matter more the closer you are to being ABD; the farther along in your career you are, the more likely you are to be assessed in terms of your accomplishments rather than your promise, and the opinions of the letter writers are less important to the committee. (I note an exception to this general rule at the end of my comments.)
    2. Letters matter more later in the hiring process as opposed to earlier. First cuts are often made without reading the letters at all.
    3. Unless the letter writer is very famous, most committee members will not be super familiar with the letter writer and their background (so most committee members will have no idea that you and the proposed letter writer graduated in the same year, for example).
    4. I don’t think there is a general norm against asking people roughly your age to write for you.
    While you didn’t inquire about this, I think what you should be thinking about is whether it would make sense to get a letter from a philosophy colleague at your current institution. While hiring committees do understand that it can be quite difficult to get such a letter, and seeking such a letter may not be advisable in some departments, these letters can make a difference to hiring committees when it comes to assessing people at your career stage and in your position.

    Reply
  6. Assistant Professor

    I have a question that builds onto the original question about letter norms more generally. I’ve heard that once you are a few years out from your PhD you should not be relying on committee members for letters of recommendation. And while this makes sense insofar as you want recommenders who can speak to your recent and current work and not what you were like as a grad student, practically, how do people go about this? Letters from within your department can be tricky if you don’t want to disclose you are applying for jobs. Letters from others in the field likely would come from people with whom you have some collegial connection that could blur the clarity around whether the person is a friend, acquaintance, collaborator, etc. Someone who is none of those things may not know enough about you or your work to write a substantive letter. What are the right criteria for a letter writer once one is into their career?

    Reply
  7. getting letters

    Assistant Prof,
    Aim to get letters from senior people with whom you have connected because of your research. A few years out, your work should begin to get some recognition, and you should be making connections with senior people in your area of research. Ideally, they will have signaled to you that they like your work – they may even have said “great paper”. Ideally, these are the people who you would like to get as letter writers. It is a slow process. (to come back to another theme popular on this blog – that is why you don’t want to JUST publish tons of papers. You want to publish good papers that attract people’s attention).

    Reply

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