I got asked for SIX (6) professional references at my last interview. Is that normal? Seems ridiculously excessive.
Don't Provide Your References to a Recruiter Until After Your Last Interview
141–150 of 231 posts
Re: Don't Provide Your References to a Recruiter Until After Your Last Interview
#142Earlier quoted context omitted.
The higher you rise in your career, and the better companies you work for, the more you'll find your references are checked. When I applied for a part-time Christmas season job at a Photos with Santa booth last year, no one checked my references. For my current salaried job, they checked every single one (I gave four).
What is the downside to just always giving a positive review, though? To rephrase the original question - this is recruiter/company A calling a person who works at company B to see if someone is suitable for company A. If you just always give a nice review, what is the downside for you? Unless you had genuine personal issues with the candidate, why wouldn't you just always give a good review? If the person doesn't wo…
I don't think the recruiter seeking a positive or negative review, so much as simply verifying claims made by the candidate or their resume. Something like...
> Tell me a little about Jim's day-to-day
> Sure... Jim is an above average junior software dev...
> Sorry you say junior or senior dev? Does Jim have team management roles?
You can give a glowing review, but depending how how Jim portrayed himself, the review can be taken by the recruiter as a net neg/pos. To directly address your question - I don't think there's much down-side for a reference to always provide a positives reviews. Just keep in mind that an experience recruiter will probably realize this too (they've probably been burned before), and have some clever ways to ferret out the key info they're after.
Re: Don't Provide Your References to a Recruiter Until After Your Last Interview
#143As someone who has worked in HR previously, this is great information for anyone approached by a recruiter. The whole industry is full of people just trying to pull together whatever they can. They are the used car salespeople of the professional industry.
Re: Don't Provide Your References to a Recruiter Until After Your Last Interview
#144Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you legally allowed to mention that? I thought references could only verify if you worked for the company, or otherwise risk being sued. Maybe that's a myth? Regardless, it's pretty odd he would put your company down as a reference after only staying two weeks.
You're thinking employment verification, or checking that the places you listed on your work history are correct. As an employer, you open yourself up to litigation if you say anything more than dates and titles. I mean there are stories of employers being called about a past, problematic employee, and saying things like "I could get sued if I told you how their performance was, wink wink." But... :-) I don't believe…
TIL, thanks. I guess I thought employment verification and references were roughly the same thing, which sounds silly now that I think about it.
Re: Don't Provide Your References to a Recruiter Until After Your Last Interview
#145Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes once I've even been told that this employer requires a Word document as Resume. So I converted my full generated resume to PDF into a word document, line by line. Turns out, it was only so they could slap their info on it, reword my words and produce a PDF. I asked the employer later, they said they prefer PDF as it's easier to print.......... Snakes. They're leeches in snake skin.
Dude. It's one page of plain text. Maybe two pages. It will be transcribed by brute force in less than an hour, if need be. Probably by an unpaid intern. You either want recruiters to help do all the leg work for you, or you don't. And you either want the job, or you don't. If they have a policy of lubricating introductions under a branded letterhead, it's gonna go down that way. The file format protects nothing. And…
^Cut and paste.
Re: Don't Provide Your References to a Recruiter Until After Your Last Interview
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
The higher you rise in your career, and the better companies you work for, the more you'll find your references are checked. When I applied for a part-time Christmas season job at a Photos with Santa booth last year, no one checked my references. For my current salaried job, they checked every single one (I gave four).
What is the downside to just always giving a positive review, though? To rephrase the original question - this is recruiter/company A calling a person who works at company B to see if someone is suitable for company A. If you just always give a nice review, what is the downside for you? Unless you had genuine personal issues with the candidate, why wouldn't you just always give a good review? If the person doesn't wo…
Ignoring that you might altruistically want to help another company -- what's the downside to being honest? If you don't want to go into detail, you could just say "We would/wouldn't hire this individual again." You gain and lose nothing either way.
Re: Don't Provide Your References to a Recruiter Until After Your Last Interview
#147Being a contractor in the UK for the last 13 years i quickly learned when i first started that any recruiter that asks for references before they've even sent the CV to the client is a lying cheating scumbag and will get told outright where to go. All they are doing it looking for leads.
The recruiter doesn't even need references. Once you interview in person you should have direct contact with someone at the company you can give references to if need be. The good ones will make the introduction and get out of the way. Yes, I believe there are some good ones (not many).
Re: Don't Provide Your References to a Recruiter Until After Your Last Interview
#148I got an email from a local recruiter a few weeks ago and stepped outside during my lunch break to give her a call. On the initial phone call she asked me where I worked currently. After the call I stepped back into my work where I sit back to back with my manager. No more than 5 minutes later his phone rings, its the recruiter calling to see if they have any need of her services. I emailed her while he was on the ph…
... is there Yelp for recruiters? Because I'd want to know a recruiter pulls stunts like that before I work with them.
Have you ever seen Yelp reviews for car salespeople?
Recruiters are the used car salespeople of the hiring world. There’s no point in a review system where everyone averages out to 0 stars.
Re: Don't Provide Your References to a Recruiter Until After Your Last Interview
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
Recruiters in the UK are much sleazier than in the US, in my experience.
This goes for Australia, considering most tech recruiters in Australia are from the UK for some reason.
They like the weather here a lot better. Honestly they are the sort of people who don't deserve our sunshine.
Re: Don't Provide Your References to a Recruiter Until After Your Last Interview
#150Wonderful advice from the community here. I always defer providing references as long as possible.
There have been a number of occasions when I thought the outside recruiter wanted to make the reference calls because they wanted to make sure a weak reference wouldn't interfere with them making the sale. The hiring HR is happy for the recruiter to do the legwork. The recruiter makes sure their candidate is accepted.