HR folks and people who hire, Q about references

[janiejones]

sometimes it is just to confirm your title & dates of employment. They might ask if the company/person would hire you again, or confirm your reason for leaving.
Other times they want to get an opinion of your strengths, and weaknesses.

It's hard to say. HR can be sneaky about references, especially in small/medium sized cities where they all know each other. A lot can be implied by not answering questions as asked.... but so many people don't even care about "fishing" prospective employee's references either. It is so company practice specific.

[fassinated]

Lurker here but as you said they're being called tomorrow, maybe this will help? I check references every day (Im a recruiter) and I ask:
General dates of employment
Title held
General impression of the quality of work done
General impression of quantity of work done (how you managed your workload, if you had many responsibilities, etc). This is where I get a lot of valuable information about how you prioritize, if you get flustered easily, if you stay late to get work done. Very valuable question.
How you got along with colleagues
If the reference would say you met overall expectations
Why you left the position
If they would hire you again/like to work with you again
Any other comments

If you want your references to "tailor" their responses, I would recommend asking them to highlight the skills you have that are most valuable for the job you're trying to get. You might say something like, "hi Susan, I really appreciate you providing a reference for me! You asked if there was anything particular that I wanted you to communicate. This position has many project management duties, so I think talking about my work on ABC project would be really helpful. I know you had great feedback on my time management skills and that you appreciated me staying calm in a crisis. It would be great if you could share that. Thanks again for your support!"

Good luck! Hope this helps!

[Deleted]

As an employer I will not give a negative reference. If called I will confirm information and if I wouldn't re-hire I wouldn't expand on that if asked. You never know what will come back to hit you in the future.

[macmars45]

Jun 26, 2013 9:19:09 GMT -5 nuggetbrain said:

These are professional references, so it's not that they're calling my old jobs to ask why I left/dates of employment/etc. I think they already did that. So these folks wouldn't be able to respond to why I left/dates of employment/etc because they left before me at the companies we worked together at.

I'm not in HR.

When my present boss called my references before hiring me she asked them how I worked with my coworkers (them at various times) and how well I performed my job. It was actually quite an ego boost for me because my references had awesome things to say about me and my now boss told them she was hiring me before anyone else could snap me up. (My references called/text me after they talked to my now boss.)

[Deleted]

Most companies will not do references. the only thing they will give is your title, dates of hire.