Writing recommendation letters that genuinely help a fellow alumnus

There is something quietly meaningful about a former classmate asking you to vouch for them in writing. The request usually arrives by email or a quick message on the alumni network chat, often accompanied by a line about how you have "worked closely together" and they value your perspective. For many former students of Sri Saraswathi Vidyapeetham and Shishu Mandir, these letters carry more than a signature. They continue a thread of trust that began on the same campus corridors.

A useful recommendation is part reference, part story. It opens a door that the candidate alone cannot open, and it tells the reader something the CV politely leaves out. Whether the alumnus is moving into a graduate program at the University of Sydney, applying for a graduate role at a firm in Melbourne, or putting their hand up for a community initiative back home, the right letter tilts the scales.

Australian workplaces read recommendation letters a bit differently from places that default to five paragraphs of formal praise. Recruiters here tend to skim for specifics and skim past flattery. They want behavioural evidence, names of projects, and a sense of how the candidate handles pressure on a Tuesday afternoon in Brunswick, not just a Saturday morning at a temple festival. Letters written with that rhythm in mind travel further.

This piece walks through the practical moves that turn a generic endorsement into a letter someone actually keeps on file. It is written for alumni who want to help without sounding like a template, and for alumni who need to ask for help without feeling like they are imposing on someone.

Know the letter's real job before you begin

The first mistake most writers make is treating the letter as a chance to be poetic about their old friend. The hiring manager in Parramatta, the academic coordinator at ANU, the volunteer coordinator at a SanskarKendra centre - none of them need poetry. They need context, judgement, and proof. Before you begin, ask the alumnus for the role description, the deadline, and any specific attributes the recipient has flagged. If you are writing for a role in a public service agency, the selection criteria will tell you what evidence to bring forward.

A second layer to consider is whether the letter needs to be open, sealed, or uploaded to a portal. Some local firms, particularly in regulated sectors, want the letter uploaded as a PDF through a candidate management system. Others still ask for a sealed envelope, even when the rest of the process is online. The format shapes the content: a portal-friendly letter can use subheadings; a sealed academic reference is expected to flow as continuous prose.

There is also the question of who signs. If you are writing as a peer rather than a former manager, name that explicitly in the opening paragraph. Australian recruiters appreciate clarity about the relationship. A letter that begins "I sat next to Aarav in Year 10" reads very differently from one that opens "As Aarav's team lead at [firm] for three years". Both are valid; pretending to be the latter when you were the former is the kind of small inaccuracy that gets a recommendation letter quietly dropped.

Weak phrasing	Stronger alternative
outstanding individual	the candidate who produced the most accurate quarterly audit in three years
goes above and beyond	stayed back on a Friday afternoon in Brisbane to walk a junior colleague through the compliance checklist
natural leader	stepped in to chair the school magazine committee when the senior editor relocated to Perth
a brilliant and talented person	drafted the alumni newsletter redesign proposal that the committee adopted last term
I recommend without reservation	I would happily hire the candidate again for a similar role

Open with substance, not sentiment

The opening paragraph should answer three questions in three sentences: who you are, how you know the candidate, and what you are about to vouch for. A line like "It is my pleasure to recommend Dr Priya Sharma, whom I taught in senior secondary Biology between 2014 and 2016, for the research position advertised at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute" is dense with detail. Compare it to "It gives me immense joy to recommend my dear friend Priya, a brilliant and talented individual". The first reads as a reference; the second reads as a wedding toast.

Australian English tolerates warmth, and it does not reward exaggeration. Words like "outstanding", "exceptional" and "the best I have ever worked with" appear in nearly every recommendation and have therefore lost most of their punch. Swap them for specifics: "the most accurate lab notebook I have reviewed in fifteen years of teaching" carries an implicit ranking without sounding theatrical. Readers can do the comparison themselves.

One practical move that works well for alumni applications is to anchor the candidate to a shared reference point. If the alumnus is applying to a role that values community engagement, you might briefly note their involvement with a Spoorthi magazine feature, or a piece they wrote for the school journal. Specifics like these do two things at once: they confirm the candidate's history and they remind the reader that this is a person whose work is already on the public record.

Use evidence an Australian reader can verify

The strongest letters contain exactly one anecdote per paragraph, anchored in a verb, a date, and an outcome. "Rohan led the school's inter-house debate team through the 2019 finals despite losing three of his senior speakers to exam week. The team reached the state-level round for the first time in a decade" reads as evidence. The same point made as "Rohan was a wonderful natural leader with outstanding communication abilities and excellent organisational skills" reads as filler.

There is a useful trick borrowed from Australian public service writing: pair every claim with a behaviour. If you say the candidate is reliable, describe the morning they stayed back to fix a printing issue before a board meeting in Carlton. If you say they are innovative, describe the school magazine cover they proposed at a Founders Day meeting, the kind of creative pivot you can read about in founders day planning on the alumni journal. The pairing makes the claim impossible to dismiss as flattery.

Be honest about the candidate's trajectory. A recommendation which omits a recent milestone, like a PhD conferred at the University of Melbourne, or a community project launched in Perth, loses an opportunity to demonstrate growth. Hiring managers in Australia often want to see direction as much as they want to see peak performance, particularly for early-career roles. A letter that traces a clear arc from training to confident execution reads as a more honest endorsement than one that pretends the candidate arrived fully formed.

Match the tone to local workplace norms

Australian workplaces have their own preferences around tone. Most recruiters expect letters that are direct, modest, and free of the puffed-up language favoured in some other markets. A reference that opens "To whom it may concern" and then runs for four pages is out of step with how Australian HR teams typically work. Keep it to a single page where possible, especially for non-academic roles. For academic roles and regulated professions, two pages is acceptable and sometimes expected.

Australian recruiters also pay close attention to how well candidates fit local standards. For roles that involve registration with AHPRA, for instance, the letter should reflect an understanding of the relevant capabilities, not generic praise. For education-sector roles that sit under TEQSA or state registration, the letter should align with the professional standards the role is assessed against. Generic praise, in those contexts, can quietly count against the candidate.

One cultural quirk worth noting is that Australian communication tends to favour the understated. A line such as "I recommend this candidate without reservation" lands harder here than in a language register where it might be considered standard. Reserve it for the closing paragraph, after you have set out the evidence, and let the reader feel the weight of that restraint.

Phrases that quietly undermine a letter

Some phrases do more harm than good, and they slip into recommendation letters more easily than most writers realise. A line like "I have always admired" or "It is with great pleasure" is filler, and filler is what an Australian reader's eye skips on the second pass. The piece on phrases that damage relationships makes the same point about everyday conversations, and the same caution applies to formal letters.

Other phrases to avoid: "hardworking team player", "goes above and beyond", "natural leader", "would be an asset to any organisation". These phrases have been drained of meaning by overuse. A specific descriptor is what revives the recommendation and keeps the reader reading past the second paragraph.

The closing paragraph should restate the recommendation in plain language and offer a way to follow up. "I recommend Aarav for the role and am happy to be contacted on email for a follow-up conversation" is a more useful close than "Wishing him all the very best". End on the offer, not on the blessing, and sign off with your name, your relationship to the candidate, and a date.