RE: Bad reference

References are just about worthless.  The person who needs the reference
will always give the name/# of whoever will say the nicest things about them
anyway. And if you're not using someone who will give you a good reference,
why bother using a reference at all.  A reference is just about equivalent
to saying, "If you want to know how good I am, just ask my best friend." And
worth about as much.

Granted, you have to base a person's ability to fill your business' needs on
something, but I believe it should be based on something more empirical, say
their proven track record of problem solving, etc..,  than pre-solicited
accolades.  If they say they can write a program to make your iSeries talk
to your Linux partition, sit them down at a terminal and have them do it. If
they say they get along great with coworkers, sit them down in a meeting
with their potential coworkers and see how everyone gets along (or something
like that). 

Hiring practices, in general, are still based in the year 1965.

-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-jobs-bounces+sodonnell=irish-studios.com@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:midrange-jobs-bounces+sodonnell=irish-studios.com@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Scott Lindstrom
Sent: Wednesday, February 01, 2006 1:49 PM
To: MIDRANGE-JOBS@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: Bad reference

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What surprises me here is while I'll give names of friends for personal
references, I know of no company I've ever worked for that will do anything
other than verify dates of employment on a reference check.  Most companies
avoid saying anything else just to avoid problems.  They having nothing to
gain and everything to lose by saying more.

Scott