Fast Company: Q: How do I ask someone to be a reference and who should I pick?
A: Choosing the right reference is a really important part of the job-hunting process. The right person saying the right things about you can tip the scales in your favor if a hiring manager is trying to decide between you and another candidate.
6 comments:
This article gives some good advice, but I think a lot of it is common sense––not that there’s anything wrong with outlining the best practices. I definitely agree that it’s more important to have someone who can speak very precisely about your work than someone who may have a higher position, but hasn’t worked with you much personally. You also want to make sure you’re choosing people you have a good rapport with and who appreciate you as a worker––it’s true that this person should speak to both your strengths and flaws, but someone with an overall positive impression of you is more helpful. I also like the idea of having a variety of people, perhaps from different areas of your life or positions, as that could help give a more well-rounded view of who you are if multiple of them are contacted.
Asking people to be a reference can get you the job or into the school. But only if the right people are selected. Selecting the right ones is a bit of a game and assessing yourself and what qualities that you are looking to articulate through another voice comes into play. Sometimes I ask myself if for example I'm applying for a position that requires teaching. Getting a reference letter from someone who learned from you or previously was a student of yours could be a very strong recommendation letter. But if teaching is not an area that is required that could have a negative affect on your application. Much like most things this is entirely situational as to what the best choice is but to allow yourself the option by asking multiple individuals, instead of the bare minimum allows for a stronger application. But increases the amount of thank you notes to be written.
Much like the article about applying for a job and considering your options, which I also read and wrote a comment for, this article’s advice is incredibly relevant to my future and will probably be something I think about in the future when applying for any job or internship. The thing I found the most interesting and unique about this article was its advice not to always ask the supervisors or professors that you have, but to branch out and also ask colleagues for their reference input. While I have applied to many different organizations and jobs that did require a reference, I always went to someone who was my manager in some form for the reference. I think that when I know a letter is going to be read by someone who is concerned partially about how I will function as a part of their team, I am tempted to immediately reference someone who can speak about me as a subordinate. The article’s perspective that someone who works alongside you instead of higher in the ranks can speak better to your work ethic and job performance is entirely accurate though. I will definitely be taking that into account in the future, especially when searching for post-graduate job opportunities.
This article answers a very real question which took me a while to figure out. It can be hard to figure out who to ask to be a reference to give the best variety possible in the right field on your resume, especially at entry level. Especially towards the end of high school/beginning of college I struggled to find that variety that a lot of articles say you should have. It took a couple years (and a couple of jobs) to get to a place where I feel like my resume and the references communicate a pretty complete picture of what I want people reviewing my resume to see as they glance over the single page that sums up who I am as a worker and (to some degree) a person. I really appreciate that the article includes some tips on how to ask folks as well - a daunting step that often we overlook until we have to do it.
Overall this feels somewhat like common sense, however after personally going through a whole bunch of job and college application processes I can understand how it might be very useful to someone who is preparing for those applications or just has yet to go through them. It can be hard to not focus most of your time and energy into one potential reference especially when someone’s just in highschool where they might not have more than one or two people to ask for references if any at that. Similarly, I do think quite a few people forget to thank people for their recommendations and references when it really is just common courtesy to at least send a thank you note or email to them in reply. It could go more in depth about how you aren’t necessarily supposed to read any recommendation letters if you’ve asked for them, people get curious but it is just another common etiquette standard on top of the thank you notes that the article could’ve added.
This article gave a lot of good reminders about how to pick your references. I feel like I often fall into the trap of caring a lot more about who my reference is instead of what my relationship with them is and what kind of reference they can give me and this was a good reminder to not do that and understand that at the end of the day it’s about me and not my reference person. I will say that a lot of the “have multiple references on repeat” comments felt like common sense but I do wonder how many references is too many to have on rotation and whether or not that would dull the quality of references. I feel like I would like to read another article that talks about how to pick references for specific scenarios because I feel like often I struggle with finding the right reference for different jobs and situations.
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