Free Recommendation Letter Templates

A recommendation letter is a written endorsement from someone who knows the candidate's work or character well enough to vouch for them. Employers, admissions committees, landlords, and scholarship panels use these letters to confirm what a resume or application form cannot show: how the person actually performs, how they treat others, and whether the recommender would work with them again. The most convincing letters are specific. One concrete example of a problem the candidate solved is worth more than a paragraph of adjectives.

The six templates here are written from different perspectives so the voice sounds right for your relationship. The employee and coworker letters are for workplace references, the academic, graduate school, and internship letters are for teachers and professors writing on behalf of students, and the character reference is for personal references used in housing, legal, or volunteer contexts. Each one opens in the free online editor with placeholder text you can replace line by line.

Before you start writing, ask the candidate for their resume, the job or program description, and any points they would like you to cover. This makes the letter far more targeted. Then choose the template that matches your relationship to the candidate and open it in the editor. Replace the bracketed placeholders with the candidate's name, your title and organization, and the position or program they are applying for. Pay particular attention to the second and third paragraphs, which are where the specific examples go: swap the sample achievements for real ones, and include numbers or outcomes wherever you can.

State your relationship to the candidate and how long you have known them in the opening paragraph so the reader can judge the weight of your opinion. Avoid vague superlatives and avoid mentioning protected characteristics such as age, family status, or health. If there is something you cannot honestly praise, leave it out rather than hedging. Close with a clear, unqualified recommendation and an invitation to contact you. Export the finished letter as a PDF for email or as a Word document if the candidate or institution needs an editable version, and sign it by hand if it will be printed.

Every recommendation letter template on this page opens in the same inline editor. There are no forms to fill out: you click directly on the sender block, the date, the recipient lines, the salutation, each body paragraph, and the signature, and type over the placeholder text. Use the toolbar above the letter to switch between fonts such as Arial, Times New Roman, Georgia, and Calibri, change the font size, apply bold, italic, or underline to selected text, and set the alignment. The margin controls let you fine-tune the page so the letter fits comfortably on a single sheet.

Your work is saved automatically in your browser, so you can close the tab and come back later without losing anything. When the letter is finished, download it as a PDF to attach to an email or print and sign, or as a Word document if you need to make further edits elsewhere. There is no account to create and no watermark on the exported files. If you need a different kind of letter, the letter templates hub lists every collection on the site.