Whats important in a letter of recommendation?

[NormalSaline]

I'm a P4 starting to think about getting my LOR's together for the upcoming residency application cycle. I can get good letters from anyone I've ever worked with, but I don't know how to pick the best 3. I have always been a hard worker and tend to leave good impressions on those I work with, so I'm making a big assumption that all of these letters will be "good" content wise. In your minds, which criterion are most important for selecting who to write them? Any other important factors that I've omitted?

- Length of relationship(I've known some pharmacists back home for 5 years, but worked for them on/off...vs 1 summer of full time work)

- Person's title (staff rph vs retail district people vs asst chief of pharmacy)

- Person's specialty ( would a letter from my amb care preceptor be best if I apply to a residency thats heavy in amb care?) Most of my work experience is in retail, aside from rotations and 1 summer internship.

- Person's organization (if I'm applying for a VA spot...a VA LOR is a good pick, right?) Are retail RPh LOR's irrelevant when applying to a residency in a hospital?

- relevance to pharmacy ( I worked as a homeless shelter manager...but this has nothing to do with pharmacy...would a LOR from a board member here be a good way to distinguish myself, or would it be irrelevant?)


Lettuce Discuss

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[spacecowgirl]

The person should know you well enough to be able to give salient examples of your skills and contributions. Even if it's a glowing review, if there aren't specific examples to show that the person truly knows you, I don't take the LOR that seriously.

 

[patmcd]

The person should know you well enough to be able to give salient examples of your skills and contributions. Even if it's a glowing review, if there aren't specific examples to show that the person truly knows you, I don't take the LOR that seriously.

Yes.
And I would concentrate LORs on hospital and faculty preceptors. Also letters from unique experiences are nice.