Good thread and topic.
As a QAO, I spent a lot of time with the evals for my sailors, reviewing their records, and establishing what impact their efforts, or lack of, had on the command. Switching back to a recommendation, in both cases you can read a stack of recs/evals/fitreps, and you can tell who the heavy hitters are.
As mentioned above, and I will jump on the bandwagon, it needs to be concise and clear on your performance and suitability for selection.
Plagirism - if you don't have copies of previous rec letters, then you are putting yourself at a disadvantage. At the very LEAST you get an idea of how the front office handles the packages. Lastly, I would say that you need to corner the lead YN or admin personnel working for the skipper. Have them review it for errors, and the particular nuances of the CO's writing style. You are NOT going to get it perfect, but if you spend the time to provide some material for them to decide from it will go a long ways.
Best of luck.
There has definitely been a move to cut down on the flowery BS in FITREPs and EVALs. I know the original topic is for a recommendation, but I want to add to what Paradigm and Steve were discussing. I will take it one step further, METRICS!!! What did you do, did you do it well, how did it impact mission accomplishment? Trend back in the early 90s dealt with what collateral duties, and outside activities you belonged to, to get ahead. Now, so much focus is on what are you accomplishing in your main job, your leadership, initiative, all culminating in meeting your command's goals. And if you don't know what your command's goals are, then you shouldn't be dropping an OCS package.Paradigm said:
As a QAO, I spent a lot of time with the evals for my sailors, reviewing their records, and establishing what impact their efforts, or lack of, had on the command. Switching back to a recommendation, in both cases you can read a stack of recs/evals/fitreps, and you can tell who the heavy hitters are.
As mentioned above, and I will jump on the bandwagon, it needs to be concise and clear on your performance and suitability for selection.
Plagirism - if you don't have copies of previous rec letters, then you are putting yourself at a disadvantage. At the very LEAST you get an idea of how the front office handles the packages. Lastly, I would say that you need to corner the lead YN or admin personnel working for the skipper. Have them review it for errors, and the particular nuances of the CO's writing style. You are NOT going to get it perfect, but if you spend the time to provide some material for them to decide from it will go a long ways.
Best of luck.
