from Penelope Trunk’s Brazen Careerist by Penelope Trunk

Reference checks used to matter a lot. Fifty years ago. When people only changed jobs twice in their life, and they didn’t know anyone outside of their company, it made sense that the second company called the first company.

Then, when it became clear that the first company could say one, tiny bad thing and then make this person unemployable (because they had only worked for one person their whole life), giving bad references basically became illegal.

So that pretty much put the kibosh on the usefulness of corporate references. Yet people still ask for them today. So here are some ways to get a good reference.

Get a ringer lined up ahead of time.

There is no rule that says you have to use your last employer as a reference. Explain to a prospective employer that you are giving the name of a person who knows you well and can speak to the issues this particular employer is interested in. Then give the name of a ringer. For almost a decade my favorite ringer was my boyfriend, who dated me and hired me and gave me glowing reviews even after he dumped me.

Give a company you hate as a reference, if you have to.

Let’s say you worked for a company for a year and it didn’t go well. Maybe your boss was incompetent. Maybe you hated the work. You can spin that in the interview – just talk about what you liked. There’s gotta be something you liked. And then, when it comes time for a reference check, you can give the phone number for human resources. As long as it’s a big company, HR will be trained to just confirm dates of employment and title. Nothing else, because they don’t want to get into legal trouble. And, if you want to make sure the company won’t say anything bad, hire a company like Allison & Taylor to find out.

Go to http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2009/04/28/how-to-deal-with-reference-checks/ for the entire article.
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– Sincerely, Marty Weitzman,NCRW, CPRW, RPBC, JCTC
Gilbert Resumes 800 967 3846

http://www.linkedin.com/in/resumepro