Just Say, "He's One Awesome Dude"

February 11, 2010 3:04 PM

Do you have advice about being listed as a reference?

Someone I've worked with for over two years, who is now job seeking, has asked me to be included on a list of references. In the chance that I am contacted by a prospective employer for him, what's the best practices for how to respond to the person? I don't need or want to make anything up, because he is a great guy. I just want to know what are the types of things to say, or how to word them, that make a difference to employers.

posted by chase to Work & Money (10 answers total)

The employer will ask the questions they want to know specific answers to. But in general, tell the employer honestly what his strengths and weaknesses are. Stress strengths that are versatile if you don't know the specific nature of the job (organization, reliability, creative thinking, etc.) But there's no magic word that will result in him being hired or not.
posted by decathecting at 3:08 PM on February 11, 2010

In case you work at the same company now, check whether your employer has any rules about giving references. A lot of companies are very serious about only giving "name, rank and serial number" - any queries must be forwarded to HR and the only thing they'll tell the caller is that Joe Shmoe worked here from [date] to [date]. Yeah it's BS and leads to prospective employers doing background checks, which are even more BS for most jobs, but you can get in hot water with your boss, so check first. In a roundabout way, if you don't want the boss to know that Joe is looking for greener pastures.
posted by Quietgal at 3:28 PM on February 11, 2010 [1 favorite]

I have given a lot of references and I have also called many many people's references.

I've never ever had someone just give me "name, rank, and serial number" type stuff. Never ever. I wouldn't worry about this whatsoever.

I am often surprised by how frank and negative some people's references are. Usually when I call someone's reference it's because I am about to make them an offer. On those occasions when a reference turns out to be bad, I tell the candidate that the reference was bad and that is why I am not making an offer. I feel the least I can do is tell the candidate to stop giving that person as a reference.

I once gave a friend an honest but not very good reference most because I did not know he had given me as a reference and I wasn't expecting the call. I ended up saying the wrong thing, without meaning to (in this particular case, it came across as sounding like "yeah, he'd be perfect for your stupid company" although I meant it to be more like "he'd be great for you guys").

Anyway, a lot of times when I give a reference, and I like the candidate, I will make sure that the person knows that I like the person - at the end of the call I will go out of my way to say "I hope you understand I think he's great - you should definitely hire him - if you have any doubts or after thoughts please don't hesitate to call me again - he is really wonderful." There's nothing wrong with saying you don't have much experience giving references and hope you said all the right things, because the candidate is great, and they should definitely hire him/her.

Make sure you are expecting the call (tell your friend) and make sure you know what the nature of the job is. You don't want to tell the caller that your friend is a world-class fishmonger when they are really looking to hire a pastry chef.
posted by thomas144 at 4:47 PM on February 11, 2010

quietgal seems to be talking about job references where it seems like the question is about personal references.

when someone doing the hiring calls to verify past employment - most companies will only give name and dates of employment. some companies will even have an outside service do this so no personal information could possibly be exchanged.

personal references, as thomas144 says, are nothing like that. as long as the hiring person is asking you the person for a reference and you the company spokesperson you are free and clear to say what you want. if you don't feel you'll give him a glowing recommendation, let him know that. since that doesn't seem to be the case just focus on the positive, don't tell any keg party stories, and over sell him a bit.
posted by nadawi at 5:33 PM on February 11, 2010

Good things you might say are that he's highly regarded by other staff/customers/clients, he's a self-starter, he's low maintenance to supervise (if you've supervised him), he rarely takes sick time, he has common sense, he's a forward thinker (ie can anticipate problems and resolve them before they appear), he sees the big picture of the organization and handles his duties accordingly. You like him as a person.
posted by ThatCanadianGirl at 5:40 PM on February 11, 2010

Also, all the stuff you say should be true.
posted by ThatCanadianGirl at 5:40 PM on February 11, 2010

I'm an academic, so I give a lot of academic references (usually but not always in the form of letters). The one bit of advice I have that hasn't been already covered is that specifics are really nice. e.g., rather than saying "he's a self-starter" -- which can mean mean anything, really -- give specific examples of times he has shown initiative. This is great because (a) the vividness of the example will really stick in the potential employer's mind; (b) the fact that you noticed and remembered implies that it was important for you at the time; and (c) it spells out exactly what you mean. Doing this really gives your words a lot more weight than simply using adjectives that a lot of people mouth without having much content to back them up.
posted by forza at 7:34 PM on February 11, 2010

When you get a call, get back to the caller quickly. When I'm checking references, I'm always impressed when people call me back straight away, more so if they're clearly super busy or on vacation and it's therefore clear that they care enough about the candidate to get back to me in a timely manner.

Now that I think about it, I wonder if sometimes people pretend they're calling me from some remote location just to add weight to the good reference.
posted by gubenuj at 9:01 PM on February 11, 2010

The one time I served as a reference for a colleague, it was a fairly straightforward question-and-answer type phone call, and involved a lot of typical interview questions:
Tell me how you knew X. So, you worked on a project that X was responsible for; what were some good things about her leadership style? Can you tell me about a time when X ran into a problem - how did she resolve it? The job X has applied for involves (blah blah); do you think X would be a good match for that type of job? Which aspects do you think X will enjoy most? What parts of that might be a challenge for her?
If they don't ask those questions, they should; you can answer them anyway - I know X because we did (project), and she was a great (colleague/leader/intern) to work with. I really appreciated the way she (general adjective) - for example, (specific story).

On a side note, I had to write a letter of reference for the same colleague (she was applying for 3 jobs at the same time), and doing it the day after that phone interview made the letter writing easy!

I totally agree with thomas144, reiterate at the end of the phone call that it is a positive reference, because there will have been so many questions and stories getting thrown around that otherwise you run the danger of getting off the phone and thinking "I can't believe I told them about the time she did (stupid thing) just because they asked me!"
posted by aimedwander at 6:29 AM on February 12, 2010

quietgal may be talking about the academy, but this can also be the case for law firms and hospitals and consulting firms. If this person was a co-worker at your current job, you should check.
posted by Lesser Shrew at 2:55 PM on February 12, 2010