u/Present_Award8001

I mean, the letters, especially in the era of large language models, are prone to be very generic. "The candidate can perform independent research while also being a team player, etc...". So, unless the letter effectively says: "This candidate sucks", does the letter even mean anything? Am I missing anything?

Two people may judge a person at the same level, but one of them can give a flowery reference letter and the other can give a more reserved "This candidate is good" kind of reference letter. How do people tell the difference?

I am a Physics PhD student. My field is related to quantum. I had the best possible relationship with my supervisor. But for some weird reason, he is simply not sending my recommendation letters for postdocs. Everyday I remind him, he says he will do it today, this weekend, and so on. But does not do it. A month has passed, I am simply losing patience. I am not fond of the idea of begging for every recommendation letter every time.

What are my options?

1. Confronting him or escalating the matter is of no issue because then he will simply give a bad recommendation letter and I have still not defended my PhD, so even my PhD will be on stake.
2. How will the postdoc employer view the application if I do not list my supervisor as a referee? Can one pull this off?
3. I have recently started building collaborations on my own, and we are doing good work, but sadly, they do not have funding.
4. If I decide to join a quantum company, will they ask for supervisor recommendation letter?