I have been looking for a new job. For five years I have worked in academic research and now I’m trying to move into private industry. My resume has four professional references: my old boss, my current boss, and my two current co-workers. They all know about my search.
Yesterday, I ran into my old boss. He told me that one of the companies I applied to called him for a reference, “I told them that you’d be great at any sort of animal work.” I smiled and thanked him for the reference. Inside, I was seething. WTF? I worked with you for two and a half years. I kept track of the grant balances, did tissue culture work, CBC’s, presentations on our research and trained fellows. Hell, twice I drove to the airport to get important antibody shipments. All you could say was that!
If you have points you want someone to hit when they give you a reference, let him or her know up front what those points are. Send a brief letter reminding the reference of some of your strong points; this goes double if you’re expecting a specific screener to call about a specific job. If I’m in the middle of a busy day and someone calls me out of the blue for a reference, even if I adored the person I may not be able to switch gears that quickly to say what he or she would want me to say.
I give a lot of weight when I hire. I do NOT rely on H/R and I call myself. H/R doesn’t like this but I am stuck with the deadweight not them.
Surprisingly I found people WILL say bad stuff about people. You would figure that if the guy puts down a reference it’ll be good. A bad reference happens more than one would think.
I demand references. Some companies have policies that only H/R can give reference and some companies only will give hire/quit dates and salary information. Some only give hire/quit dates. When this happens I call the candidate and say “Your prior employer will not provide adequate information for a reference. Can you give me another reference to replace it.”
I also do this if the employer provides a written reference, because anyone can write that and it’s proof of nothing. I won’t except a fax though some companies insist.
If they do fine, if not, I go on to the next candidate.
Some employers don’t even check. In today’s world of cell phones, references are inadequate because anyone can simply get a celll phone and reference himself by giving the cell phone number and answering it.
But I have been burned too many times not to be thorough. (sp??)
I’m dealing with an outplacement firm to help me find a new job (as a result of getting laid off), and I just wanted to say that the person I’m dealing with there strongly emphasized exactly that. She also suggested that I not automatically include my list of references when sending out my resume hither and yon. If one waits until the references are actually asked for then it’s easier to keep your referees informed about what might be coming up.
Muriel, out of curiousity, would you mind sharing what type of work you hire for?
Mouse_Maven, since you are in an academic field, references will be given pretty strong weight. And I don’t think the reference you mentioned was a bad one. Yes, it would be nice if he had added in some of the above-and-beyond stuff, but he did come across has happy with your work, and that’s the key.
I suppose it depends on the field and the specific company, but **Muriel’s ** approach is not typical of a lot of corporate hiring.
As the head of Marketing for my company - and an executive at a top mgmt consulting firm for years before that, interviewing both business school and experienced hires - yes, references are key.
twick is spot on - if you want to use someone as a reference, contact them, let them know EXACTLY what you are looking for them to comment on, get a CLEAR agreement from them that they are prepared to do that. Don’t be inappropriately pushy - you can’t force them to do anything - but you must be up front with your needs and explicit in your expectations - or else, what do they have to go on? Make their work easy for them!
Look, reference checking is always done over the phone so the person giving the reference can speak their mind in an undocumented way, so no matter what, they will say what they want. But the more structure you give them - e.g., the top 3 points you are hoping they would be comfortable making about you - the better off you will be.
I’m always honest when someone asks me about a reference. In one instance, my info was “I think he’s fine as a programmer but not as an analyst”: the company did hire the guy as a programmer and I was later told that his boss (who did not know about my own info) had said the same in the guy’s first yearly review.
From what I know it depends a lot on the hiring manager. Some companies always ask for a reference because the form was defined that way by someone who may not even work there any more; some people do not ask for a reference but peel the grapevine thin enough for microscope slides finding their own.
When I do hiring I never check personal references. Usually they are perfect or vague.
Personnel directors love them, however, because it’s the only way they can evaluate people- they don’t have the expertise to find out their qualifications in the interview.
If you have weak references, therefor, I recommend you try for jobs at smaller companies, where there are not a lot of people in personnel and the checking, if any, is done by the hiring manage.
