How to prevent your referees from sabotaging your job interviews?

One of the toughest hurdles some people face when looking for a job is providing a current employment arbitrator who can provide insight into your knowledge, skills, and how you fit into the workplace. This is especially true for people who have been laid off and their supervisors have also lost their jobs and left. This is a more complex issue.

But what about the job applicant who thinks their referee will give them a good report, only to find out a year later that they’ve actually been responsible for their failed job applications? They may never know or find out too late and have wasted valuable time. The longer you are unemployed, the more difficult it will be to find a job. In fact, the arbitrator may not even have realized that his or her arbitrator report did not convince the applicant to the satisfaction of the potential employer.

In one case, I found that an arbitrator gave a vengeful report so vicious that I believed the job applicant had grounds for legal action. The job applicant had been in regular communication with his arbitrator and was told that all was well and that he was nice. There had to be an explanation as to why the job applicant had such positive interviews only to be told he was unsuccessful, and this led me to check it out.

Not all bad referee reports are deliberate. Being someone’s referee is a very responsible task and the job seeker must make sure that the chosen referee is on her side. The two parties need to talk about their obligations to each other and put a process in place for how it will work for them. The job applicant must be sure that the arbitrator understands that his report could get him the job or be responsible for losing it.

Referees must be nurtured. In the first instance, they should be provided with the resume of job applicants and a list of the type of jobs they are targeting. They should also be told about any skills the job applicant had that were not used in their last job. When a job applicant gets an interview, she must provide the referee with her job description and job application.

My policy is to advise job applicants to leave the referees name off the resume and indicate that the referee will be provided at the interview. There are many privacy concerns related to the appointment of an arbitrator and the contact details on the resumes. Many referees do not like their names and details to be made available to one and all. Ideally, you should have two arbitrators that an employer can contact if possible.

When it’s all over and you get your job, you should give the ref some kind of gift. Maybe a good bottle of wine!