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Gossip is both common and consequential. People often share reputational information about others in their absence, and this ubiquitous practice powerfully shapes impressions, interactions, and relationships among senders, receivers, and the targets of gossip. This paper addresses two open questions in the gossip literature: When and why do senders share inaccurate information, and to what extent do receivers rely on such information? We conceptualize letters of recommendation (LORs) as institutionalized gossip and study these questions in the context of labor markets, where senders choose how much to advocate for a job candidate and receivers decide whether to hire them. We propose that senders of LORs balance advocacy and accuracy based on the strength of their ties with the target and the receiver. Specifically, we predict that senders prioritize advocacy over accuracy when they are strongly …