Page:When You Write a Letter (1922).pdf/155

 takes courage to do it, but in the end it pays.

I believe I have written more letters of recommendation than any other man living of my age, because the college student and the college graduate are persistently looking for a job where references are required, and I have been a willing victim. Nearly every mail brings me in such requests, and yet I do not recall that many fellows have asked my permission to give my name as reference or have thanked me for the letter that I wrote. If you give a man as reference, the least you can do is to ask his permission beforehand or to announce to him what you have done, and if you ask him to write a letter for you, the minimum compensation you can offer him is to thank him.

Then there is the application for employment, the attempt to get a job by mail. It is a rather delicate matter to blow one's own horn effectively. There is always the danger of sounding too faint a note and of not being heard over the footlights; there is the opposite difficulty to avoid of turning on too much wind and of overdoing the job. How much to say