How to get letters of recommendation when you work alone

Question

There are a number of questions on this site about lacking (good) references from people who know your work, but none seem to address a situation where you lack references because there never were any people who know your work: Due to the nature of the department and especially the projects my supervisor is responsible for, I work entirely alone. This means that after one year I have no one whom I can say "knows" what I can do. Whom do I turn to for references in the case that I work entirely alone and I'm too new for anyone to be familiar with me?

On a given job application site, for example, I have to provide not just one but three references. In my case, even getting one is uncertain because my supervisor is only aware of my work on a superficial level. My previous degree was finished 5 years ago, so I doubt that my supervisor from back then could provide much of a reference, either. The job I held before starting was also for only a very short period, as was the one before that...

Addendum 29/10/2017: I am leaving the department, so I do not have much time to cultivate any possible sources of recommendation letters; I have to make due with the relationships I currently have, which are very few.

Answer 1

I think the elephant in the room is that, in your case, your issues finding letter writers is merely a symptom of a much deeper problem. You not only fail to collaborate in your research (which, in many disciplines, would be a severe career hindrance all by itself), you appear to not even communicate what you do sufficiently. I understand that situations come up where collaboration with the faculty in your own university simply does not happen, but if literally nobody (inside or outside your institution) is aware of what you are doing and how it is going, then why are you getting paid a stipend to do it in the first place?

So to answer your question:

This means that after one year I have no one whom I can say "knows" what I can do. Whom do I turn to for references in the case that I work entirely alone and I'm too new for anyone to be familiar with me?

Change this immediately, not primarily because you don't have somebody to turn to to write a letter, but because you will not have success on the job market anyway if nobody knows what you do. Network internally and externally. Give talks. Go to conferences. Actively look for collaboration opportunities. If you are just one year in, you have plenty of time, but now is definitely the time to start becoming more proactive.

Note that a letter writer does not necessarily need to be deeply embedded into your daily work to write an effective letter. If an experienced researcher has broadly observed what challenges you work on, how you work, what your best research contributions were, etc., they will be able to write you a letter. You don't need to meet with a letter writer multiple times a week - just seeing you give a department seminar twice a year and chatting occasionally in the hallway may already go a long way towards being able to write a letter, if no more suitable options present themselves.