Recently Obama’s (remember him? He was POTUS less than a month ago!) press secretary Josh Earnest was giving his final briefing to the press corps after eight years of service. Just before he signed off, in popped the President unannounced & unprompted and proceeded to give a five-minute glowing reference about the embarrassed (but no doubt delighted) employee.
Not everyone can have a personal televised recommendation from the outgoing POTUS but everyone could get a reference from their boss.
Part of my role to assist when placing candidates is to provide references. I know Ireland is a small and often a lot of unofficial background checks go on, but the official ones are the ones I’m talking about. I ring a referee, mention the call will take no longer than 10 mins, ask about the candidate, how they fitted into the team, fulfilled their duties, etc.
The killer question is ‘Would you re-employ?’. Don’t even go there, that’s a whole other blog.
The last question is ‘Is there anything you would like to add to this reference about x?’ I suggest previous referees have used bright & breezy phrases like
However, often I get a straight forward no. NO?
If you have worked alongside someone for a number of years and there is not one positive thing you would like to say about them, companies may infer that as a “non-reference”. A simple one or two lines about the fun, smart, intelligent side of the person, or EVEN an ‘all the best’, ‘good luck’, ‘I hope our paths cross’ can be the difference.
Back at the White House, when Richard Nixon was vice-president of America and running for president against JFK in 1960, President Eisenhower was asked by a reporter to give an example of a major contribution Nixon had made over the previous 8 years. Eisenhower responded: “If you give me a week, I might think of one”. Now that’s a non-reference!
Reference from Obama – this is a five minute video, allow the time and enjoy!
