Requesting and using references
If you have paid careful heed to this advice through your academic years, you stand a good chance that an honest, unbiased reference will be complimentary about your professionalism, attention to detail, intellectual energy, ability to problem solve, set priorities and lead other students, and communicate well and with confidence in both oral and written forms. Now you are ready to approach one or more professors for a reference either for graduate school (scroll down) or for employment.
References for employment
Job references fit within a sequence of events from the employer’s posting of the position to the acceptance of the offer. Note these general milestones.
- Send cover letter and résumé (or complete an online job application).
- Go to interview when invited. Take complete list of references with you.
- At conclusion of interview, provide selected references if asked.
- At no point should you send reference letters with your application or provide them in an interview unless you are explictly asked for a letter of reference.
The usual procedure is for you to send a job-specific cover letter and a résumé to the employer of interest. Some employers request (or even require) that you apply online. Rule #1 is to follow their instructions. There are many resources (unfortunately, both good and bad) on how to write résumés and cover letters. In the letter or résumé you may express your willingness to provide references, if you wish, although it could go without saying, since the employer will ask if they want them regardless of whether you offered.
If your application is attractive, you may be asked to an initial interview and even a “work sample”, where you are given a task that is representative of the basic skills of the job. When you attend the interview, take your list of references with you. Ensure that you have each person’s full contact information with you: phone, email, fax, and postal mail address. (In my case, you must tell companies that they are welcome to email or fax, but phone calls are not possible.) At the first interview, you may be told that there are other rounds of interviews to follow. You will not likely be asked for references until the last round, but have them with you and provide them if you are asked. They will tell you how many references they want, and you may be asked to write them on a form. If you offer references at an earlier interview, they may be accepted, but do not read too much into it. References will not be called until the appropriate stage of the process.
Although you will likely be asked only for up to three names, it is best to have in mind 5–10 potential references who have seen you in different contexts. Do not hand over this entire list. When you are asked for a specific number of references, play it by ear about which referees are appropriate. Unless they give you explicit or implicit cues, choose the best ones on your list who can talk about your work abilities and qualities relevant to the job. In this case, avoid asking too many questions about what references they want. They will assume it is obvious. They don’t want you to name three influential people who like you, or seemed impressed by you. They want three referees who can articulate an unbiased opinion about your abilities that are relevant to their position. Of course, you will also want to ensure that those people have an overall positive impression of you. However, your neighbour who is a supreme court judge or girlfriend’s father who is a VP of a major manufacturing company are not good references, unless you actually also worked for them. Although professors are reasonable referees for a new graduate, try to include someone who has seen you in paid employment or a volunteer position with significant responsibility.
Some hiring decisions are preceded by panel interviews, testing, and multiple rounds of interviews, and these steps may signify that the employer is looking for opinions about a wider range of attributes, for instance, if you are being considered for a management development program rather than a job-description-oriented position with clearly defined duties. In these situations, you can ask the employer what qualities they want references to be able to speak about, and then name references from your list in the best position to comment on those qualities.
Do not expect that your references will be called. In many cases, companies now call references only when they are down to one candidate. Companies are beginning to realize that comparing the enthusiasm of the references on multiple candidates essentially puts random strangers in control of the company’s destiny. The person calling the reference may not be the hiring manager. Many corporations use outside firms to check references, giving them a better chance to catch people at résumé fraud before they are hired.
A request for a reference is a request for name and contact information, NOT a letter. Unless you are specifically asked to include a letter of support from a reference of a particular type, there is no point asking a professor to write one. It is not appropriate to include any letters of reference with an application unless the employer has requested them. Most employers will shred these on receipt. Employers recognize that generic reference letters are invariably positive (since you have already seen the letters and will presumably have already thrown out any that are not). Some people send forged letters, letters that are much too old, or letters from irrelevant supporters, such as character references for business jobs. If the employer wants a reference, they will ask for it, and they will ask questions of their own choice, relevant to the specific job. They are not interested in the information that your choice of reference has documented on a one-size-fits-all basis.
The referee must honestly answer the employer’s questions. What your referee will say depends on what the employer asks. The professor will not just begin to enumerate your strengths or your weaknesses. She will probably start with asking what type of position it is and what qualities the employer is looking for, and then ask what would the employer like to know about you from the professor’s perspective. If the company only asks whether you submitted your assignments on time, and you did so without fail, then the professor might say so and no more, even if the job involves public speaking and your oral presentation skills were poor.
If you are successful in getting the job, let the professor know. Also, since the reference may have been a factor in the job offer, your comments and behaviour after you get the job should not put your respect for the professor into question, or the employer may doubt whether the reference warranted the weight they placed on it. Keep good relations with your university and the professors you used for references, because you may need to use them again if you decide to change jobs before you have accumulated many business references, or decide to go back to grad school.
See also this post about preparing the reference to be contacted.
Grad school and scholarship references
Grad schools and the scholarships and fellowships that you will likely seek at the same time often have reference forms. Provide the forms on paper along with an envelope fully addressed. If we can just complete the form by hand, fold it and lick an envelope, writing the reference is a much quicker job. If there is an electronic form, some professors may like this option, but provide both and explain what you have done (i.e., that it is not two separate things). Also provide printed material on the program to which you are applying, if the professor is not familiar with it. Do not email us a website address and expect us to track information down. Assemble a kit to help us do this task for you. If the grad school asks for simply a letter of reference and does not have a form, their admission material usually indicates what they want the letter to cover. Printing that out will help us to compose the letter. Provide it along with an envelope with plenty of lead time, and ensure that we know when it is due. Daily nagging is not a good idea, but it’s quite a good idea to send a gentle reminder a couple of days before the deadline or the date it was agreed that you would pick up the reference, because it can be set aside and overlooked in a flurry of urgencies. If the letters are to be sent with your application, make arrangements to pick the envelopes up. The norm is for the referee to seal the letter in the envelope and sign across the flap. Do not expect to receive a copy of the letter.
Since you will likely not see it, what can you expect the reference to say?
Look at the criteria on the reference form. Usually, forms ask for ratings of your written communication, spoken communication, leadership abilities, intellect, initiative, and integrity. Ratings often ask us to decide whether you are in the top 2%, 5%, 10%, 25% etc. in these categories, and to provide some open-format comments on specific topics. You can read the blank form yourself to see what the professor will need to have in mind to write a reference. The easiest way to get a complimentary one is to provide a short reminder of specific things you have done in that professor’s course that reflect on those attributes and went above and beyond your peer group. While we likely remember who you were for years afterwards, it is not always easy to remember who did what, especially in stolen moments between grant deadlines and setting exams when we’re trying to get your form out by the deadline. If you were in a class of 50, a rating of “top 2%” in a particular attribute would mean that you had to be the #1 student in your class in that attribute, so it would be good to help us recall examples that place you at that level, not just above average, because overstating your performance puts our reputation on the line.
It would help if you provided the professor with a true copy of your transcript as well. In this era of rules to protect your privacy, we are often unable to access your transcript ourselves, even when we are attempting to do a favour for you. While this can be a photocopy or printout from the records system and not an “official transcript” for which you have to pay, there should be no question of alteration or forgery. You should write on it that it is an unofficial copy and the professor has your unrestricted permission to check it against official records for the purpose of giving a reference, and sign and date that statement. If you wish to place a limit, such as “for the next six months” or “in relation to my application to university X” then add that to the statement. In most cases, we will not be dwelling on your GPA, because you will be providing official transcripts to the graduate program directly, and they can evaluate those marks for themselves against their admission criteria. Your transcript helps remind the professor which courses were your strongest areas, what types of electives you favoured, and a bigger picture of your studies outside our specific course or courses. In some cases, if our subjective impression is that you would be a good candidate for grad studies but your marks were not outstanding, we can actually comment and put that in perspective if we are aware of your overall record.
