Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Job References

This article is more than 2 years old.

If you're going to job-hunt in your lifetime, you need references. You can't wait until you need your references to assemble them. You have to start thinking about your references from your very first day of work at your very first job!

You're going to need at least three references. One of them should be a boss, and the other two can be other bosses or customers, vendors, or co-workers. If you don't leave your job on good terms with your own boss, maybe there's another manager in your company who will agree to provide a reference for you.

You can call on a manager who likes you and who has already left your company. That person would make a great reference-giver, because they can speak freely about you and your brilliance now that they don't work for the company anymore.

An incredibly slimy and unethical thing that a lot of big companies do is to forbid their managers to give references for former employees.

You can hardly even take in the degree to which this policy is a slap in the face of the employees. The company is saying "Work here for years and do a great job for us, but then the minute you leave we're going to disavow all knowledge of you." They'll confirm your employment dates, and that's it.

It's one thing if you go to work for the CIA voluntarily. We all know that those guys can't talk about who's on their team and who isn't -- but a regular company? They should stand behind their employees and be happy to tell other managers "That employee did a great job for me!"

They don't, though, because they listen to lawyers who don't know what they are talking about. The lawyers tell fearful managers "One of your supervisors might slime a former employee, and then your company would get hit with a defamation lawsuit."

Using that logic the managers shouldn't be allowed to talk to customers or current employees, either. Anybody could file a lawsuit!

No Human Workplace employer uses a no-references policy, which should really be called the "Go to Hell, Former Employees Who Want Us to Vouch for You" policy.

As you assemble your list of references, ask each person specifically whether he or she would be willing to give you a reference. Never include anyone on your reference list without their permission. If you haven't used your reference list in a while, check in with your references before you give anyone your reference list again.

Never send your references to an employer with your resume. You are in possession of your valued reference-givers' private contact information, and that is not something to be shared with strangers!

Run away from any employer who requests your references before they've met you face to face.

Some unethical organizations mis-use their job applicants' references. One time I agreed to be a reference for a person who had worked for me at a past job. Two months later when she gave her reference list to a university where she was applying for work, I got a call from the university's fund-raising team. They called me and my former teammate's references to ask us to donate to the university's building fund. Stay classy, San Diego!

Keep in mind that reference-checking and employment verification are not the same thing. They are two different processes. Employment verification is nearly always performed by a third-party vendor. You don't ever need to supply an employer with the name of your last manager if you and he or she didn't see eye to eye.

If you're providing past employment details for an employment verification process, you can supply the name of the HR manager in  your old company, instead of your evil boss. You can use the name of a friendlier boss or another manager, one who can vouch for you, in your reference list.

Although many employers ask their job applicants for references, many fewer actually contact the people on the list. I'm a reference-giver for at least fifty of my former co-workers and I almost never get calls or email messages asking me to give a reference. That's a shame, because I'd be happy to get on the phone and gush about the awesomeness of my brilliant former teammates. Employers don't take the time to check references the way they used to. Still, you have to have your references ready to go, but not until you've sat down face to face and met the people you're contemplating sharing your reference list with.

Got all that? Then you're good to go. We are cheering you on from the sidelines!

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