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I've scheduled an interview at a job recruiting agency for next week. I was sent a confirmation email which suggests, among other things, that I should bring the names and phone numbers of 4 personal references. Two of these should be former supervisors, including my most recent one.
First of all, this seems absurd for a first meeting when I don't even know if they'll be able to do anything for me. Second of all, I've only ever worked at one company and I'm still there, so I can't give my present employers as references until after I get an official job offer. And I haven't stayed in contact with former co-workers, so I wouldn't feel comfortable tracking them down after many years for this purpose, assuming I even could.
So, what should I do? Also, when it comes to non-professional references, who might be good choices?
Yeah, it's ridiculous these days. Some places ask for at least 3 professional references even for volunteering.
Have you done any volunteering recently? The only advice I can think of is to ask current co-workers (who you can trust not to tell anyone) to vouch for you.
Or maybe you can even ask for a letter of recommendation from your supervisors but tell them that it's for volunteering.
I've scheduled an interview at a job recruiting agency for next week. I was sent a confirmation email which suggests, among other things, that I should bring the names and phone numbers of 4 personal references. Two of these should be former supervisors, including my most recent one.
First of all, this seems absurd for a first meeting when I don't even know if they'll be able to do anything for me. Second of all, I've only ever worked at one company and I'm still there, so I can't give my present employers as references until after I get an official job offer. And I haven't stayed in contact with former co-workers, so I wouldn't feel comfortable tracking them down after many years for this purpose, assuming I even could.
So, what should I do? Also, when it comes to non-professional references, who might be good choices?
Of course they are. That's what they all do. Buy 4 prepaid phones. Make up 4 names and "stories". Give them these 4. Get friends or family to answer for you with rehearsed "reference shpiel." Or answer them yourself if the people refuse to help you. That it. How hard is that?
no they will call them regardless either to recruit them or if they are supervisors to sell their services. That is partly why I avoid agencies. They will bother and burn your references with no regard.
Do you think it would be a good or bad idea to address this with the recruiter in advance, at least the part about not being able to use current employers? Alternately, I'm thinking about overlooking the matter entirely, and just showing up without references. I have a suspicion that half the stuff on the list won't come up at all anyway.
I've scheduled an interview at a job recruiting agency for next week. I was sent a confirmation email which suggests, among other things, that I should bring the names and phone numbers of 4 personal references. Two of these should be former supervisors, including my most recent one.
First of all, this seems absurd for a first meeting when I don't even know if they'll be able to do anything for me. Second of all, I've only ever worked at one company and I'm still there, so I can't give my present employers as references until after I get an official job offer. And I haven't stayed in contact with former co-workers, so I wouldn't feel comfortable tracking them down after many years for this purpose, assuming I even could.
So, what should I do? Also, when it comes to non-professional references, who might be good choices?
I would explain your situation to them. If you haven't had two supervisors, you obviously can't provide two supervisory references. You can request that they not contact your current supervisor until you have a job offer. In regards to personal references, I think you can use teachers/professors. I don't think you're technically supposed to use friends and I know you aren't supposed to use family, but if you don't have anything else there's little choice.
I don't like that so many employers want references up front and they want at least one supervisory reference. I'm in a huge job search right now and I'm sure my former supervisor would give me a great reference, but I don't want to put her name on 40 applications and have 10 of them calling her.
I actually worked at an agency for a couple of months (filling in for someone on maternity leave) so I got to know a little more about the "behind the scenes" stuff. The manager of that particular branch would get references on the initial screening call and then contact them! It was ridiculous. You're talking to these people on the phone, you don't even have an interview for them yet and you're calling their references?? The other recruiter in the office said he never did that. He'd wait until they had a client interested in a candidate and then call. I agreed with him. It's a waste of time on the part of the agency and really annoying to the references themselves.
This is what I went through on a job app as well. They wanted to send 5 references emails with a survey to fill out on me. 3 supervisors, including current. All before they interviewed me. Screw that!
This is what I went through on a job app as well. They wanted to send 5 references emails with a survey to fill out on me. 3 supervisors, including current. All before they interviewed me. Screw that!
I had an agency ask me to do that as well, except it was just three references. They wanted at least one supervisor but I told them that my former supervisors are very busy and have little time to fill out surveys so they accepted three coworkers instead. It's completely ridiculous. Everybody is busy these days and most supervisors/managers don't have the time or want to deal with completing a frickin SURVEY on a former employee!
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How hard is that?
