Reference 5: Employment - Student
November 5, 2014
Margaret Whitehead
Senior Editor
Educational Vistas Magazine
3300 South Wabash Ave., Suite 3505
Chicago, IL 60602
Dear Ms Whitehead:
Re: Employment Reference – Susan Charles
I am providing this reference letter at the request of Susan Charles, who has asked me to serve as a reference on her behalf. It is my understanding that you are considering Susan for a position on your editorial team as a Researcher.
Please be advised that the information contained in this letter is confidential and should be treated as such. The information I provide should not be disclosed to Susan Charles or anyone in your organization not involved in the hiring decision related to her. Additionally, the information should not be disclosed to anyone outside of your organization without Susan’s consent.
I have known Susan Charles for the past three years. During that time she has taken the following courses which I teach: Introduction to Education Studies, Educational Psychology, and Teaching Secondary English. As her professor, I have had numerous opportunities to observe Susan’s participation and interaction in class and to evaluate her knowledge level. Accordingly, I would rate her overall performance in these subjects as slightly above average. This is evidenced by her marks of B+ across the board in the courses which I taught.
I can recall Susan making an exceptional presentation on the subject of “different learning modalities” in the Educational Psychology course. The multi-media approach she used for that was original and highly effective in supporting her thesis. In general, the papers she submitted to me were well researched and original in perspective. However, I found that her writing style and approach often left something to be desired. In fact, I can recall pointing out to her on a number of occasions that if her papers were better organized and more succinctly written, her marks would have improved from a B/B+ to an A-/A.
Overall, based on her academic performance in my courses, and my understanding of the Researcher position for which she is applying, I believe that Susan Charles would perform an adequate job from the outset and would likely perform at an above-average level once she has grown into the job, especially if encouraged to work on improving her writing.
If you would like to discuss this further, please feel free to contact me at (312) 852-4936.
Sincerely,
Robert Jamieson, Ph.D.