Overview:

Description:

Before extending a formal job offer, your future employer will check your references. This signals that you’ve aced your interviews and become a job finalist. Your references can make the difference between a job offered and a job lost. Be sure your references close the deal for you. Here’s how:

Candid and Articulate References

Don’t: Job candidates often provide reference lists with names of employment-verifiers who will only confirm the basics, such as date of hire and date of termination.

Do: Instead, choose references that can be candid and articulate about your accomplishments, your work-related personality and your general work style. Your references should be able to discuss your strengths and speak to your strengths as well as to areas where you need development.

Keep in Mind: Many employers are looking for that candor and will rank you higher than someone whose references give only perfunctory comments. It’s a myth that it's illegal for an employer to be frank in giving references. The truth is, if you’ve done a good job, your former bosses will be delighted to speak well of you.

Highest ranking and appropriate relationships

References from those who have had workplace authority over you are heavily weighted while references from friends may be disregarded.  Most employers understand that it can be awkward to ask a current boss for a reference. You can ask your previous bosses for references, but don’t go back more than three to four years.

Prepare: Be sure to provide your references with a summary of your accomplishments to guide them in writing about you or speaking on the phone about you. If you are lucky, some bosses will work on your behalf with a senior executive to get a high-ranking reference for you. Immediate supervisors also make good references.

Nurture and Protect

Ask first: Always ask for permission from each of your references to place them on a reference list. Make sure you’ve obtained their full buy-in. Ask if they would write a letter for you and be prepared to provide one you created yourself expressly for their signature.

Keep references informed: Alert your references to expect a call from your future employer and send them a brief email reminder summarizing your accomplishments so they can use it when contacted.

Protect your references: Always protect reference names and contact information and let your references know you will protect their privacy.  Produce your reference list for a future employer only when you are a finalist. Do not drop your reference list off at job fairs or forward it with your preliminary online job application.

Starting Your New Job

Be sure to thank each of your references and let them know you got the new job. Keep in touch with your references as they have now become part of your employment network, but do so professionally and succinctly.

Additional Tip: Should you have an excellent relationship with a boss who is leaving the company, ask if he or she will serve as a reference before they depart.

For more information about the job hunting process, see the Career Resource Section at Out & Equal’s LGBTCareerlink.

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Submitted by:

Date added:

Tuesday, 19 Jul 2011