Jan
27
I need to list this job on my resume, but am afraid of getting a bad reference. What should I do?
By
Cleo1324 questioned:
My first, and only, job after college was with a small, family-owned business. Although I got along very well with my supervisors, I am worried that they will give me a terrible reference, because the same thing has happened to every other employee who left the company, regardless of job performance. Because this is my only real experience, I need to list it, but I don’t want to ruin any opportunities. Any advice on how to list the experience without the possibility of getting a terrible reference?
My first, and only, job after college was with a small, family-owned business. Although I got along very well with my supervisors, I am worried that they will give me a terrible reference, because the same thing has happened to every other employee who left the company, regardless of job performance. Because this is my only real experience, I need to list it, but I don’t want to ruin any opportunities. Any advice on how to list the experience without the possibility of getting a terrible reference?
Unless you speak with your former employer beforehand (withOut saying that you’ve heard that they’ve spoken poorly about other former employees), and you’re relatively certain that you will not get a poor reference, perhaps consider leaving that off of your resume. Businesses don’t usually hire people that have gotten a terrible reference.
How about talking with a student advisor at your alma mater about how to handle the situation with your resume.
For general job searching tips: and can click ‘career advice’ or such.
Let’s reckon outside the box here. You can GUESS about what to do. Or, you can go out on a limb a bit and find out for SURE what you should do.
Try “faking” a reference call to see what they will say about you. Call your ancient employer (or have a trusted, excellent-actor type of friend do it if you’re not excellent at disguising your voice believably).
Say, “Hi, Mr. Soandso, my name is Made-up-Name from Made-up-Company (don’t say Vandelay Industries, though). I’ve just interviewed Your-own Name for a position and s/he’s high on my list of potentials. I know s/he worked for you directly out of college?”
Then you lead into a small list of questions, like “How would you describe this person’s reliability overall? Did this person take initiative? Would you say this person did high-quality work? Any overall comments on your experience with this person?” General things like that. Don’t grill them. Just question a few pointed questions that you reckon might be likely to produce an unsavory answer (so you’ll know for sure whether they would take the opportunity to lambast you).
Now, assuming you’ve worked up the stones to do that, and you’ve just hung up, what did you learn?
A) You were pleasantly surprised by the nice, or at least neutral, things they said about you. Include it on your resume and stop worrying.
B) They said some things that would be very damaging if a potential employer had heard it instead of just you. There’s not really a “smooth” way to clarify that they give terrible references to everyone. I wouldn’t believe you (no offense), nor would any hiring boss– it would be very terrible form for you to overtly disrespect your previous workplace during an interview. So, if you KNOW you’ll get a damaging reference, you have two options: The hopeful way and the deceitful way. The hopeful way involves you just putting it down there and hoping that your hiring employer is one of those that doesn’t really check your references or work history too in-depth. The deceitful way is about you making sure that phone call never happens, by starting to fudge things. You probably want to either leave it off or omit key details. If you still do include it on your resume (excellent thought since it’s your only experience post-college), don’t include contact info (but they can still look it up if you stop there!). If it’s been a couple of months, you might even go so far as to claim that they reorganized their business, renamed it, and went and that you lost contact. Realize, of course, that trying to avoid the reference is going to seem a small fishy, but as long as you have an awesome resume, and a kick-butt collection of other references (like during-college bosses and/or major professors) who will sing your praises, that can be skimmed over. Getting a terrible reference, though… you want to avoid that.
Excellent luck!