The voice at the end of the phone was surprisingly blunt: yes, she said, she had checked this particular employee’s references – but how could you really tell if they were telling the truth?
“You can’t know if I’m telling the truth right now!” she said, and I could hear the wry smile in her voice.
She’s right. I’m in the middle of the good-mummy thing, checking references for a child minder – but how can you really believe any of it? How can I know if the calmly assuring voice at the end of the line isn’t just a mate put up for the job?
It’s a question that rebounds on me now, as I wonder just how honest I’ve been in giving references for colleagues and friends.
It’s one of the most vexed employment issues around; how to provide an honest but fair reference for someone, but how to act in good faith with the organisation to which you are recommending?
And then there’s how to get out of being asked to give a reference you don’t want to give. That’s another story.
In my limited experience of childcare, it’s pretty clear that some people hear what they want to hear and disregard the rest, as Simon and Garfunkle put it.
Conversations with child carers revealed minimal reference checks in some of their previous employment, so harried are some families about the need to get care.
In my experience as a member of interview panels, it’s also clear that not all referees feel they can be honest. They can hold back expressing legitimate concerns about skills and abilities forfear of damaging someone’s chance of work.
They can exaggerate too – helpfully, of course. And we all know that referees can be downright dishonest if they’re trying to get rid of an outgoing employee: they have no intention of telling the next mob the real reason this person is going.
Humans lie. Nothing new there. But given the ease with which you can use the new online world to falsify identity, it seems to me that the possibility these days of a truly credible referee is only a hopeful one. I don’t think I’d even trust the old letterhead and signature anymore.
Still, recruitment companies love the referee. One high profile international recruitment firm offers handy hints for the all-important referee that end up revealing the unsafe nature of the system. Referees should be worded up about the job one is applying for, and should make you sound good and back up whatever you claimed in the interview – all of which sounds suspiciously like collusion to me.
You should also remind your referee of your skills and achievements when you were working with them (something I would have thought they should be able to speak about without prompting).
I wonder if my limited experience is any indication of the general suspicion and ultimately uselessness of many references?
But short of industrial espionage, establishing the bona fides of someone, in the fugitive digital age, is going to become a game for the amateur sleuth.
