These questions are being answered by Learn HR, a market leader in the provision of HR and payroll training and nationally-recognised professional qualifications.
Q: When asked to provide a reference we only give the dates of employment and the title of the job or nature of the work. Is this alright?
A: The essential criteria for issuing references is that you must not mislead the reader by either commission or omission – what you put in or what you leave out. If, by following your practice, you omit to mention something highly relevant, you will mislead. If therefore you wish to continue to issue only minimal references you should make it clear that employment dates and nature of work are the only information that you provide. Many potential employers will be satisfied with this since they wish to check only continuity of a particular type of employment.
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One Response
References
I was rather disappointed to read that ‘most employers would be happy’ with such a minimal reference (especially for more senior jobs). That has never been my experience.
I think it is generally accepted that a written reference is hardly worth the paper it is written on (although some employers don’t seem to appreciate this, judging from the bureaucratic request forms I sometimes see). For any critical job, a telephone call to the referee is much more likely to be helpful.
I also observe that a minimal reference is actually most commonly interpreted as a negative one by most recruiters. While I accept that there are some legal quagmires to avoid in providing more detailed references, I think it is quite unfair to an applicant to hide behind such a concern – especially a good one. More, what goes around comes around. Insight from past employers can be so valuable, and most recruiters rightly seek it. So, in my view, they should also rightly provide it. It isn’t *that* difficult to give a helpful, factual reference without exposing oneself or one’s organisation to possible complaint.
Jeremy