I’ve applied for jobs a few times and this has always been a problem. Now that I’ve been out of college for a while it’s even more of a problem. I don’t have anyone from college that would even remember me. I can’t use my current coworkers because I don’t want my current employer to know I’m leaving until I have a new job lined up. I don’t keep in touch with old coworkers. I don’t do anything outside of work as far as volunteering or anything. I know I’m not supposed to use friends or family. Who is even left after that? The only people I have the contact info for are friends, family, and my current boss.
Use your friends and family. Tell them you’re doing so and instruct them to lie for you.
While this initially sounds a bit ‘wrong’ I realised that I’ve been asked to be a fake reference before. So it’s actually a part of the norm.
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I guess that’ll have to do. It just feels bad that I have to start off what I’m hoping to be a good job by lieing. Luckilly my mom remaried so most of my sibblings have different last names than me. I also have one friend who was technically my coworker at my last job. Sure we were in completely different departments but we still worked for the same company.
My buddy and I have had a long-standing agreement to be each others’ occupational references for job applications. When either of us is filling out an application that requires a reference, we give the other a head’s up e-mail that includes the dates we supposedly worked there and how to answer any specific questions that might come up. I even made a fake letterhead and have a box of fancy paper to use if one of us needs an actual letter of recommendation (that’s only ever come up once in the last 10 years).
These employers would throw your app straight into the bin if you asked them for employee references, so fuck 'em.
There are four questions you’re going to get from everyone who bothers to call (which won’t be a lot of people, tbh). “What was their hire date?”, “What was their last date of work?”, “Are they eligible for rehire?”, and “What was their final salary/pay rate?”. Make a post-it note for your reference-buddy with what you want them to tell a caller for those questions (never say “No” to “eligible to rehire”). If the caller asks anything else, the answer is “I’m sorry, our HR policy does not allow us to answer that question.”
Illegal to ask in California, btw
The problem with this is if you have parents who solemnly believe honesty is best policy. My parents might lie about my issues by way of omission, to try to paint me in a good light but they sure as hell won’t lie that they are my parents.
I used people who have only seen me at my best, but aren’t relatives.
volunteer leaders from places I love to volunteer. If I love volunteering there I don’t usually see it as a job, so I’ll always be at my enthusiastic passionate best.
take a week’s work experience somewhere and use them as a reference (or just apply at the place you volunteered if you liked it, a week is enough to give a good impression better than any reference) - a week is usually long enough to give you a reference, but short enough that it’s still a novel experience so you don’t have time to show your worst or how quickly you burn out.
my previous boss was great for use as a reference as he’s honest, but he has a way of drastically downplaying everyone’s bad qualities to other people (if there were no good qualities, he would’ve fired you anyway), while at the same time managing to make you feel bad for having those same qualities.