“References upon request” - this is a phrase you find in most resumes posted for North America. But how truly can someone get an opinion about yourself and your past expertise based on what someone else says about it?

Job Hunters

It may happen (and I would say it happens) that job hunters be more interested in getting the names, positions, phone numbers and email addresses of people hiring other people from different companies, than taking care of one of the thousands poor guys looking for jobs. We know about 80% of available jobs are not published anywhere and part of them may be made available to these job hunters exactly through our references.

Company Policies

Many large companies, such as Microsoft, have internal policies that deny their employees to provide references, after one of their subordinates leave. So you may have worked for such a company, but you’re not even allowed to prove you’ve been in good relationship with your boss and did a good job. Most embarrassing is when you have later to deal with recruiters who have no idea about this and look at you in a very suspicious manner when you tell them. It may happen your former manager to be nice and accept your request, but he does it on his own risk.

Bad Environments

There is no secret the work environment in the IT industry gets more and more a rather bad reputation. After the crash of so many dot-coms in years 2000, investments became rare and software developers no longer find the same excitement in the way they are treated and the work they do. Under budgetary constraints, many projects fail and the blame game starts by the end of the mandate. It is unfortunate, but many people leave or their contracts are terminated at this late stage, when whatever someone could say about an other, about what his role was or what he did in the company, there is a strong chance it will be rather negative. It is sad the good work you might have been provided for years in such company to be affected by the negative feeling of failures at the end.

Conflicts of Interest

If you work as a contractor and are looking for new opportunities, it may happen you just temporarily suspended your work at your current company. You might be later called to do some maintenance, or to provide additional new services. Or you are waiting to get a pay check which is already late. By asking your company to give you references for your new opportunities puts you in a conflict of interest. Your client might not be happy you’re already looking for something else. They might prefer to keep you available for themselves, just in case. Or they can even blackmail you with references, if you refuse to provide them whatever abusive requests they may have at the end of contract.

Have Friends?

It is so easy to actually provide as references friends from the companies you worked for, prepared in advance on what to say about you and how to exaggerate your actual role and rewards in the company. I also heard about situations when former employees check their own references, asking a very close person to call on the phone their former boss and see what he can actually say about you. If bad things are said about you, no problem, look for somebody else… How can someone truly rely on somebody else’ referrals, if you have so much flexibility in the selection of the 3-4 persons you mention?

Conclusion

This process seems so subjective, prone to error and almost designed for other people to take advantage of you. Instead of asking for references, a potential employer should rather be better prepared to check the actual competences of the people he wants to hire. Especially if the candidate can prove - through a written contract and/or paystubs - he already worked for big companies and/or on important projects, what better references can you get for him, if you are trully interested in his skills and expertise?

Companies or recruiters who insist too much on references might be unfortunately a sign the job they offer you comes with a bad or at least suspicious environment. Look for something else, life is too short to waste it on such “opportunities”!

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