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I have been asked ,out of the blue ,to provide a reference for a guy at work .
He has got the job pending my reference the problem is although he is good at his job there are one or two issues that would cause concern with regard to a promotion.
If i put them in the reference he poss would not get the job.
Any suggestions?
Make sure you're comfortable about recommending the person before supplying a reference - it reflects on you/your company if you say (s)he's something (s)he turns out not to be!
Most companies ask for a company reference which would need to be stamped by the HR Department. This differentiates from a personal reference.
I have at times been asked to supply both, always trying to say good things about them to help them get the job. Don't say anything negative - just don't mention the points you're concerned about - their interview process should weed out the people with issues.
Hope that helps :)
Someone once mentioned to me that you are not allowed to put negative things in a reference, the fact that you have not mentioned them is enough for them to pick up on. Is this true?:confused:
Such as, if they are always late, you do not mention ant aspect of their time keeping.
Exactly what happened Vince, with someone I did a company reference for. However, as he was leaving I did mention to him that I would not mention his unsatisfactory timekeeping on the reference. He was going for a job where they have flexitime so in this case I didn't feel the issue was relevant. Anyhow, apart from that, he was a perfectly good guy and I wanted to help him get the job, as he clearly no longer wanted to work for us - why try and stop one of your staff from furthering their career? We couldn't offer him the opportunities he wanted. By the way Vince, you are correct, you cannot say negative things about someone on a reference, unless it is proven to be factually accurate.
Very interesting points ,thanks chaps.
I can fill the form in with a clear conscience
done loads of references for good lads and tossers over the years , normally if you just put a bit of doubt in the letter you sometimes receive an obscure phone call just to ask a bit about the person.
A job reference would normally only confirm details about your current or previous employment, e.g. salary, length of service, job title.
Potential Pitfalls in Providing a Job Reference
A character reference would be more difficult to evaluate.
The problem i am having is this is a promotion within the company,The lad had given a previous company in London as a reference but our lot have been unable to make contact .Our company is desparate to fill the post and given i was one of his supervisors they have come to me.
Personaly i dont think he is up to the job but the dilema is,if i tell it how it is he probably will not get the job ,if i dont he probably will and if it goes tits up i said he was ok!!
Great isnt it.
Isn't there also some rule that you give someone a bad reference? We've just been asked for a reference for someone, including details of what they did - we can remember her working here, but got absolutely no idea what she worked on!