Continuing on with the How to Get Hired or Now to Not Get Hired series, I want to focus on references.

How to Get Hired

• Pick a reference who is happy to cough up several examples of your great work.
• Tell this person you’ve applied for a job, so they can expect a phone call.
• Tell them details about the job, so they can talk up key strengths of yours related to it.

How to Not Get Hired

 

• Pick people who don’t like you (one reference told me to “look elsewhere among the candidates”).
• Neglect to confirm your reference is available. At least half of the people I’ve written to requesting a reference for a candidate have not replied.
• Pick someone who won’t put any effort into your recommendation.

Seriously, I can’t tell you how many “She’s great!” “We loved him!” “He’s terrific, just hire him!”’s I’ve gotten. You might as well have just not even put down a reference and saved me some time. It also makes me question your judgment a little.

However, once you’ve put them down as a reference and sent out that resume, the ball’s in their court. So now I’m talk to you, potential references.

#1 – Please just email me back. Don’t make me use the phone. To begin with, it’s not just me making the final decision. My boss will do a final vet of the candidates, so if you call me on the phone, you’re either going to have to also talk to him later or he’s just going to go with my shorthand notes I jotted down during our conversation.

#2 – Shoot the candidate an email asking for the job listing or anything they want you to emphasize in your recommendation… or even de-emphasize.

A lot of the applicants for the job I’m screening right now do a wide variety of things in theaters. I’ve had several directors and performers apply for the job. I’m not saying that doesn’t make them a good fit, and maybe even some skills from those jobs apply to being a Production Assistant, but I don’t want a reference that tells me all about what a great director so-and-so is or about how I’ll never meet someone who can sing Take Me or Leave Me like this applicant. Irrelevant. Totally irrelevant.

#3 – Tailor your email (for the love of all that’s good, again, email, not a phone call) to emphasize the traits listed in the job listing. If you can provide specific examples of times the candidate really nailed that trait with your organization, even better!

#4 – Do mention that you enjoyed working with the candidate and their personality type – just don’t make it the only thing you mention, or even the epicenter of your reference. Quite honestly, we’re looking for a more outgoing, bubbly person to fill our current void mostly because my boss and I are not. Knowing this is helpful. Knowing only this is not. Also, please use some form of punctuation. You may be a director, but your crazy, run on sentence of a recommendation isn’t art. Thanks.

#5 – If you really must call, please prepare at least 3 points you want to tell me about the candidate. I had several really awkward conversations this past week when the phone would just ring and it would turn out to be a reference. There would be like 2 minutes of awkward silence as I rummage through my paperwork to even figure out who this person was calling regarding. Then they would ask me what I want to know about the person. I often had a small list of questions, but it’s helpful if you can actually carry on a conversation. Doesn’t the candidate make you want to rave about them?

The best phone recommendation I heard this week started out by the person admitting they had no idea what the job entailed. As I listed out some key traits, they told me about times the candidate had successfully done those things before. Score.

Of course, another very valid answer is to just tell the person you really can’t be bothered. Now how do we just make that socially acceptable?