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No Need to List References Before an Interview

June 30, 2009 By Nagesh Belludi 2 Comments

In response to my previous article on why résumés should not list references, blog reader Ana Maria inquired, “I’ve been asked to provide references before an interview. What should I do?”

Short answer: decline politely. Say, “I prefer to give you a list of references after my interview.” Here is why.

References are relevant only during the later part of the recruiting process, i.e. after a prospective employer has interviewed you and desires to check others’ impressions of you prior to extending you an offer.

Interviewing Skills - List of References As a candidate, you should choose to describe yourself first to the prospective employer in an interview. Your references should represent your credentials only after you and the employer have established a mutual interest. This is the established protocol.

Besides, providing references after an interview is respectful of your references. You would not want to bother your references too often or make public their contact information.

The above guideline holds even if you are interviewing through a contracting firm or recruitment agency. Such intermediaries routinely complete reference checks before they present worthy candidates to their clients/recruiters. For that reason, the recruiting agency may contact your references after an initial interview with a representative of the agency. Subsequently, the agency may forward your references’ opinions to a prospective employer, but should not pass your references’ contact information.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. What is Behavioral Interviewing?
  2. Job Interviewing #2: Interviewing with a Competitor of your Current Employer
  3. Interviewing Skills #3: Avoid Second-Person Answers
  4. Interviewing Skills #4: Avoid too many ‘I-I-I’ or ‘We-We-We’ answers
  5. Use The STAR Technique to Ace Your Behavioral Interview

Filed Under: Career Development Tagged With: Interviewing

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. John Henry says

    May 2, 2011 at 10:57 AM

    I recently received an interview and was requested to provide the names of two referees. One of my referees provided a reference however the second referee could not be contacted so I gave permission the interviewer to contact another possible referee indicated on my CV.

    After a lapse of about a week, I decided to call the interviewer to ask if the third referee had been contacted and quite unexpectedly the interviewer became very abrupt and rudely hung up on me for no apparaent reason. I was told that the interviewer would be in contact with me, nothing else, no explanation.

    Am I entitled to know from the interviewer if the third referee had been contacted for a reference and if so what information had been disclosed about me?

    I look forward to your reponse.

  2. adn says

    February 19, 2016 at 2:56 PM

    your not ENTITLED to ANYTHING . PERIOD

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About: Nagesh Belludi [hire] is a St. Petersburg, Florida-based freethinker, investor, and leadership coach. He specializes in helping executives and companies ensure that the overall quality of their decision-making benefits isn’t compromised by a lack of a big-picture understanding.

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