Writing your own letters of recommendation

The unimaginable has happened: there is an add for a TT job* in the home country. So obviously I (and probably another 16 million people) am applying. So I have to write a research statement and a teaching statement (AARRGH I thought I didn’t need teaching experience if I was going to be a career post-doc). And on top of that I need 3 letters of recommendation. The first one is going to be from my current PI, which will be easy, I just ask him. The second is going to be from my grad school professor, which is going to be a bit harder, because he makes me write my own letters of recommendation (yes this sucks). The third one is going to be a bit harder. I have a collaborator in the home country who has written letters for fellowships and such, but I’m already writing grants with this person and even though ze says I should totally apply for this job, ze also told me ze would prefer if I would work with hir. So it feels weird to ask this person for a letter. I don’t want to ask any of the people in my committee because they will also let me write my own letter and it’s even harder (and somewhat schizophrenic) to write two different letters on behalf of different people for yourself. My PI told me to ask someone in the field who I haven’t worked with but knows my work. I have such a person who I met at a meeting and who has written a letter for me in the past, so I think I’ll ask hir again.

But first, on to the hardest part: writing that letter for myself on behalf of my grad professor…

*So I can finally make use of all the super useful advice on Dr. Becca's TT job aggregator