I recall being very surprised to find out that a recommendation letter and advisor’s name are VERY important in faculty hiring. I had assumed it should be research interests (their diversity and depth), prior experience/papers and research vision (which is most important!). But no, recommendations turned out to shape who’s invited to campus interviews. Ever since, I’ve been questioning this approach. Is it appropriate to give recommendations so much weight, given all the inequity and bias this approach has? Many people will say: “Yes, it helps us decide on a candidate quickly”. However, now looking from the PI’s side, I am still inclined to think that no, it’s not worth it. ♦️ Major PROS: 1. Decisions can be made fast when you have too many applications. 2. Using the letter, you can learn about their personality, passions, trustworthiness, etc. This is by far the biggest reason why so many committees use references. They also can call the advisor directly. ♦️ Major CONS: 1. Recommendations can have a lot of fluff. ‘Amazingly unique’ candidates turn out to be below average during interviews. 2. The advisor’s NAME on that letter has a huge effect. This limits career opportunities for those excellent candidates who were not lucky enough to have “that big name writing a 2-page reference” for them. 3. Strong students may receive bad recommendations because their advisor was unhappy about something small (or simply toxic). There are many stories of students whose careers were destroyed by supervisors via bad recommendations. 4. Many advisors don’t know how to write strong letters. When poorly written, a recommendation letter devaluates a strong candidate. ♦️ Ethical issues with recommendations: 1. Recommendations promote elitism. “You are not from a famous advisor’s group..? Sorry, you don’t belong here.” 2. Recommendation can be used to indirectly control students and postdocs: “You don’t want to spend 15 hours a day on your research? But then how can I write a good recommendation letter for you?” 3. Recommendations can be used to cut opportunities for students (it's rare though): “This student is so good… I don’t want him to go to my competitor’s group and transfer my lab’s expertise there. A dull reference will save me.” 4. Students don’t report their advisors’ inappropriate behavior because they need good recommendation letters from them. 📍 My current view is: Recommendations are useful when they are accurate. But advisor’s bias, lack of experience, lack of interest and sometimes even retaliation - it all negatively impacts the outcome. I think it all comes down to: “Do I want to hire fast, or do I want to hire fairly?” ___