5 Things That Make an Awesome Referee for Your PhD Application

The references you provide for your PhD application will play a vital role in supporting your personal statement and research proposal as well as shedding more light on your academic record. But who should you pick? Gaia Cantelli explains what to look for - and what to try and avoid.

While you’re busy putting together all the pieces of your PhD application, the referee statements can feel like one area that’s blissfully out of your control. You can’t write your own reference, so there’s nothing you can do, right?

Actually, there are a few things that you can do to make sure the reference section of your application. First and foremost, you get to pick your referees! However, choosing who to ask for a reference can however be a very daunting experience. Who knows you well enough? Whose background is most appropriate? Who will shine the best light on your skills and experience?

Ultimately, this is a very personal decision, but there are ways to make it easier. Here are five things to look for in a great PhD referee.

The ideal referee is someone who has a lot of real-life experience of you in an academic or professional context. This may seem simple enough, but there are pitfalls. For one thing, it’s easy to get side-tracked by how good a referee’s name or position looks and lose sight of what they can say about you.

While you might be really excited to have briefly worked with a famous scientist or writer, you want to make sure that at least one of your referees is someone who has known you for years. This might be a professor at your university, an academic you have done research with or your boss at a job that is somehow related to your PhD field.

There’s still a balance here. If the person who has known you the longest managed you during a part-time catering job, you might want to consider getting the opinion of somebody working in academia.

Of course, not everybody is so lucky as to have an academic advisor within their chosen PhD field who has known them for a long time. In fact, if you are an undergraduate student it is most likely that you won’t have such a person in your life. If this is the case, the best thing you can do is to find different people to tick different boxes for you.

For example, you might want to enlist someone who has known you for a long time but who is not working in your field of choice (like a university tutor), as well as someone who is less familiar with you but who is involved in the field of research of your choice, such as one of your final-year professors.

While it might seem like stating the obvious, picking someone who likes you is a rather smart move. Chances are none of your university tutors and professors actively dislike you, but some will be warmer towards you than others. After all, it’s human nature to relate to some people more than others!

So, don’t be afraid to choose people who like you as referees. On the other hand, if you have the persistent feeling that one of your advisors dislikes you for some reason (professors are people, too!), don’t shy away from choosing somebody else!

Writing a good reference takes time. Your referee will need to look up your academic CV and be sure they are making your case as best as they can. This means that dropping referee requests on your professors at the last minute is unlikely to yield a good set of references. It also might come across as quite rude (and you definitely don’t want to be rude to a potential referee!).

Once you have decided who your referees will be, send them a quick email asking if it’s OK to include them as referees, along with links to the PhD you’re applying to. This will give them time to prepare ahead of the application deadline comes, even if it’s several months away!

It is highly unlikely that referees will decline your request, but if they do it will be for a good reason – they might be about to leave for a field research trip, go on maternity leave or take a sabbatical. Contacting them early ensures you will have plenty of time to ask somebody else – this is much less stressful than finding out you’re short of a reference with only hours until the deadline!

Just like any other type of writing, reference writing is a skill. Picking somebody who has a lot of experience writing reference letters can be a good idea. As a rule, senior academics who have mentored several PhD and Masters students will have written many reference letters and are likely to understand the requirements of the task.

Of course, this is not a reason to discard an otherwise perfect referee candidate – but rather something to keep in mind when selecting your second or third referee option. Making sure that at least one of your choices has a lot of reference-writing experience can play to your advantage!

As a PhD applicant, you want every one of your references to be – and appear – genuine and objective.

If at all possible, avoid choosing referees who might be seen as having conflicting interests, such as family members, friends or people who share your same address. While these individuals might well be capable of being objective, you want to avoid all suspicion.

The other side of the coin is to make sure that the person you are asking will support your decision to study a PhD.

For example, if you are working as a laboratory technician and your boss does not want to lose you, they might be conflicted in the type of reference they write. You quitting to pursue a PhD could mean they have to hire and train somebody else who might not be as efficient. While most employers and supervisors will be thrilled to see you progress in your career, give potential conflict of interest a moment’s thought!

Whatever you do – and whoever you choose – don’t make the mistake of overlooking references just because they ‘aren't a job for you’. This is your choice to make, and it matters. Good references can make or break a highly competitive application. Take the time to make sure yours are as good as they can be.

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