I hate the whole concept of references. I don’t want to ask a favor from someone in my past. I don’t want to keep contact info for former bosses or co-workers.
Our society is like:
Pull yourselves up by your bootstraps.
Have personal responsibility.
Your success or your failure is 100% due to your good or poor choices.
Employers: “By the way, you are going to need help from some strangers in your past in order to get a job with our company.”
Companies are constantly trying to figure out how to pay workers less. I would absolutely take less money if the hiring process didn’t have so much hoop-jumping. How has capitalism not figured that one out yet?
I think anyone who has worked HR knows why you ask for references.
Because some people literally list their mother.
Because others list previous employers or even best friends who have nothing nice to say about them.
And because some people, having really thought it through and providing the best reference they can come up with, list their buddy Steve who will get on the phone and say something like:
“Jack? Great fuckin’ guy man. Works hard and parties hard, ya know? Just keep his psycho ex away from the job site bro, that bitch is crazy.”
You can weed these people out without wasting time. Half of what a job interview is about is seeing if people have a good head on their shoulders. If you pick a bad reference or lack a good reference and don’t even have the brains to have someone lie for you, it’s probably the tip of the iceberg with your bad choices.
I tend to agree with you, but as someone who has been on both sides of interviews, sometimes what nice things they say about you can provide useful information.
At many companies, the hiring process is designed to identify people who are capable, but also highly willing to be exploited. There are also a few companies that use their decent treatment of employees as a hiring tool, and rightfully so.
Capitalism, especially late stage capitalism, works strongly against the interests of individuals who are not billionaires in every aspect of life. Hiring is just another of those areas. Unions are pretty much the only tool within the system that can help non-billionaires.
Not to mention, sometimes, the references are not as good as the applicant imagines.
Those are always interesting moments.
I was going to say–not everyone is as glowing about the person asking for a reference as they would like to believe. Not that there are juicy stories that I have to tell or anything, just enough shade that it was enough to get the org to reconsider offers.
I don’t know that I’d say it’s “juicy”… but we had an applicant insist we call a certain reference. We were going to skip it, because it was their ex-boss; and because their ex-boss fired them. At best that’s going to be smoke getting blown up our asses.
The ex box told us exactly why they got fired and exactly why we shouldn’t hire them.
Let’s just say keep it in your pants.
(I’m going off half-cocked here…) - maybe references are actually to make it harder to leave your current job?
As a reference I try to provide examples of when the person was challenged and overcame it, along with the good stuff. I’m not going to say they’re bad employee, they’re asking me for help getting a job. Why would I turn around and say they’re not good?
Why would I turn around and say they’re not good?
Because sometimes you know that you can’t in good conscience inflict that person upon an unsuspecting employer
Then I wouldn’t agree to be that person’s reference.
Im just happy if my bro is willing to lie for me.
They don’t even need to lie. If you came in and did your job that’s all that needs to be said. You don’t need to go into details. Simply saying “Id hire them again” is all the new job wants to hear.
I get what you’re saying though
Enter the chat: me
Once upon a time I had to fire a contractor because we ran out of money. Fast forward 6 months, we’re hiring and he’s relatively happy at new job. Yada yada we convince him to apply again, and me being hiring manager I basically hire him on the spot.
But hr needed a reference. He asks me if I can be his reference. I ask hr if I can be his reference. They say yes, so there goes me, filling a form that I’ll have to read and sign 2 days later.
Peak efficiency right there.
In my country you can’t give a bad reference but you can refuse to give one.
If your former employer declined to provide one that’s a pretty big red flag.
Your previous employer is the person most likely to know if you are a good employee tbf.
Why would a former employer say anything good or bad about you? What do they gain from it? In the US any questions about your previous work will just result in them saying “yes, they worked here for those dates”. Why would they help you or a competitor? You left and a competitor cuts into their profit margin.
I agree if “the employer” is a faceless corporation, someone who didn’t know you. But if it was your manager and you had a good working relationship why wouldn’t they give you a good reference? It’s not their profit margin, they just work there too.
I think it’s a barrier to entry for people who had something happen in their life that caused them to lose friends/family. Recovering addicts and former prisoners can have a hard time finding references.
You have to have someone that will say good things about you. Not everyone necessary has that if their a dick. Most of the time they are looking for a job based reference as that’s more relevant to them, especially if the reference has a public phone number or company email etc.
You should only need two references most of the time, so it should be doable with just references from your previous company? Or maybe the one before that in a short stint.
The hoop jumping is part of the hiring process. If you are unwilling to do tedious and to you utterly pointless shit, if you value your time and self respect, you aren’t the kind of mindless meat robot they want.
There’s some people that can’t come up with positive references, even when cherrypicked. I’d probably fall into that group.
Nonsense. I’m an ass, brutally honest to a fault; one of my many. In a world of housecats, I’m a barn cat. I start passionate and I end Hulk.
I’ve left companies like
Me “my flight leaves tonight.”
Them: “oh. Vacation?”
Me: “noooooo, moving. Here.”
… And I can find people who’ll speak to a decent work ethic.
You should be fine.
Ask your friends. I used to have a home business, and I keep my website active so it looks like I still exist or just recently closed down. If any of my friends need a reference, they know they can put me down and I’ll be happy to say they did whatever they want. A glowing review. “When they were placed in charge of logistics, they reworked our entire system and nearly doubled our efficiency while cutting previously-unnoticed losses.” or whatever fuckin business nerd words are good.
That’s what I told my best friend and brothers. List me as a previous freelance boss, I’ll lie for them, fuck companies.
To my friends who need a professional reference, I always just ask them to sit in on a charity game stream with me. Then I can confidently list them as having contributed to a nonprofit cause with me.
Gotta love those technicalities :)
Bro, I’ll talk you up if you ever need it
Reaminds me of this legendary Aussie. https://youtu.be/SoZ41i2dSIw?si=Er-JrpdsBLnMD5hH
Having people willing to say good thing about you is a signal.
There are people who I would not be surprised if they are unable to produce quality references, and I would be ok with not having the opportunity to work with them.
I’ve had people ask me to write reference letters and need to decline. It was super awkward but I just couldn’t put my name to one.
I think you’re wrong about personal responsibility and boot straps, or at least that depends on your field. Certainly my successes and failures at work are closely linked to my coworkers and customer base. It’s not all on me, for good or bad.
Also, these days in many countries, referees don’t dare say anything negative. Most companies have policies about that. Nobody wants to get sued or be forced to deal with the labor board. In reality, former bosses most likely to confirm employment history, and they might throw in a few generic positive comments. Or if it’s someone you know well, they might say something that makes you sound good.
References are not going to hurt you, unless of course you don’t have any halfway decent ones. But if that’s the situation, you probably ought to work a part-time job, volunteer, or take a class at community college for 4 months, if that’s at all possible given your economic constraints.
When I give references (assuming I considered the person an asset) my strategy is “honestly with rose colored glasses.”
Like: “They’re fantastic problem solvers who will hyperfocus until they get the task done” = Generally productive person but they’ll get caught in the weeds if you let them
I once had a former friend (as in, we had a falling out due to him being a constant asshole) apply to the company I was working at and list me as a reference (we had also worked together for a couple of years at one point).
Oh boy, did he not get that job.
I had a falling out with a friend but apparently he had listed me as a reference. Now if we were on good terms i mightve lied for him, but he had terrible work ethic and i watched him get fired from one job to the next on repeat for years. So when they asked if i would consider him a good worker i told them frankly i thought he was a terrible worker and how he had been terminated from half a dozen jobs in the 2-3 years i had known him.
I have no idea why i was listed as a reference and i especially don’t know why he wouldn’t tell me he was using me as a reference. But yeah he for sure didn’t get that job.
Similar story. I think my exact words were, “If you hire him, he will railroad you.” 'Nough said.
I hope the info my references give on me is a little more nuanced than “they were good.”
Maybe something like “they’re one of the best at innovation. They actually came up with engineering solutions that allowed us to overcome bottlenecks and exceed our goals.”
You can bet 99.9% of applicants don’t get that kind of reference.
