October 6, 2014

What Are Your References Saying About You?

Here’s something you maybe didn’t know:

Before I call a single one of your references, they are telling me about you.

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Giving references in Canada can be tricky and some companies shy away from it altogether. One wrong thing said against a candidate by an employer during a reference could result in defamation lawsuits or Human Rights issues. References are risky business.

Which is why they can also be misleading. Very few are willing to risk their company’s well being over a bad reference. Most will either refuse or tailor the reference to discount all the negative feelings they may have had about a former employee. If I’m getting a bad reference, I usually assume it’s because the referee doesn’t know much about Employment Law.

Whenever a former manager of mine would get calls for references he would say he would only answer yes or no questions and not elaborate on any details further than that. He was protecting his own ass.

So, in the end, a good reference doesn’t necessarily mean much. But that’s okay. Like I said, even if your references are glowing, they may have said bad things about you before we’ve even chatted.

How?

Whenever I gather a reference I ask for five key pieces of information: 1) Name, 2) Company, 3) Title, 4) Phone Number and 5) E mail address.

Name is obvious. I need to know who I’m talking to.

For company, I want to make sure you’re providing references from places you’ve actually worked. If you’re sending me a reference from someone at a company that doesn’t appear on your resume, I want to know why. Who is this person? What is your relation to them?

Company also helps me date your reference. If I ask for three references and all of them come from companies you haven’t worked for in eight years, I’m going to start wondering why there hasn’t been anyone since who felt you suitable enough to provide a reference for? Red flags are flying high.

 
Collecting Position Title is very important in reference taking. Maybe you’ve sent me three glowing references from your last company. But they were all your co-workers. One of them was your water cooler buddy who didn’t even work in the same department as you. They all like you, but I expect your friends to all like you.
 
What about the person you reported to? The person who can speak directly to your work and how you were as an employee? If I ask you for three names and not a single one of them is a former supervisor, you’re references are going to read as suspect. If you’ve been working for the past 5 years and you can’t find a single supervisor to say something nice about you, you’re going to come off like someone who doesn’t get along well with management. You don’t want that. We certainly don’t either. 
 
 
As for the contact info, I want to make sure you’re keeping up to date and in touch with your references. Why can you only provide e mail but not phone? Why does the e mail keep bouncing back to me? References are people you should still be in touch with and who should know I’m going to be calling. If I call a reference and they are caught off guard because they didn’t know I’d be calling, I’m wondering why you don’t keep in touch with your references. Are we going to have communication breakdown problems with you?
 
 
So before you send your references out, take a look at them and ask yourself what you think they say about you. Are they current? Do they include at least one person in a position of authority who can speak directly to your performance on the job? If not, it’s probably time to reconsider who you’re engaging to be references.
 
They’re talking about you before I get a chance to talk to them. Make sure they’re saying only the best.  

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