Authors: Gayle Laakmann McDowell
Tags: #Business & Economics, #Careers, #Job Hunting, #General
The Google Resume (10 page)
While these candidates acted extremely foolish, they made the same mistakes many candidates make. They failed to demonstrate honesty and integrity, and they did not communicate effectively with the reference about her ability to provide a strong reference or any reference at all.
Who Makes a Strong Reference?
You do not need to provide the same references for every job. In fact, if you’re applying for a variety of roles, you should vary your references, depending on the skills required.
A strong reference will fit all of the following criteria:
- Knowledge of your work.
A strong reference will be one who has worked directly with you for at least six months, if not several years, and who can speak in-depth about your skills and accomplishments. And, of course, this should be someone who liked you. - Articulate.
You’ve worked with your references long enough (hopefully) to know if they communicate well. If they sound ditzy or speak with terrible grammar, they may not inspire confidence when they speak about your intelligence. You want someone who can elaborate just the right amount and can cite concrete examples. - Positive communicator.
Not everyone who likes you will be able to speak well of you. Some people are just too negative, while others may not be able to communicate clearly. John, a Microsoft employee looking to switch careers, opted to not have his manager give his review, turning instead to his manager’s manager. “My direct manager liked me, but he was a poor communicator—one of those guys who almost never seemed pleased, even when he was. His manager, on the other hand, knew my work very well, and was generally more prone to positive reassurance. The choice was a no-brainer.” - Understands the desired position.
A reference who understands the position will be able to more effectively communicate your ability to fulfill the responsibilities. - Available and eager.
When a reference can’t spare the time to talk to a prospective employer, it can seem as though the reference isn’t sure about your skills. Make sure that your reference is happy to do this favor for you, and don’t burden him any more than necessary.
When you select your references, think about what skills are most important to a new position. Your references could come from a number of sources, including peers, mentors, vendors, or even customers. Your most recent supervisor is often the best reference if you’ve left the company and did so on good terms. In fact, not offering this person as a reference will often raise red flags.
No matter how many references you list, the company may do its own digging. After all, everyone can come up with three good references; the true test is whether nonsolicited references also turn up positive.
How to Make Good References Great
Where do bad references come from? From candidates who don’t spend time on their references. References should be prepped for each and every position. Who will be contacting them, and what will they want to know? The more prepared the reference is, the more positive she will be. Trust me—there’s nothing worse than waking up at 8 am to an unexpected call, only to have a stranger jabber away about skills for some job at some company you know nothing about.
Following the steps below will ensure you a much stronger reference, and will earn the appreciation of everyone involved as well.
1. Ask permission.
Every time you distribute a reference’s name, you need to ask the reference’s permission and confirm the contact information. The reference might have moved on, or he might simply be traveling and prefer to be contacted on his personal phone or e-mail.
2. Describe the position.
Tell your reference about the position. Why do you want it? What are your career goals? Why do you think you would be a great match?
3. Refresh their memory.
Your reference might have forgotten about some of your greatest accomplishments. Remind her of what your responsibilities were, what your accomplishments were, how you accomplished them, and what your greatest challenges were. At a minimum, if your reference would be expected to know about some of your accomplishments listed on your résumé, make sure to discuss the details of these with her.
4. Update them.
If you’ve taken any additional courses or had any significant experiences, describe these to your reference. These may come in handy.
5. Suggest areas to emphasize.
While you can
never
ask your reference to lie, offering suggestions on areas to stress is acceptable and even helpful. If you want to make sure that the caller knows that you’re a strong negotiator, you can mention this to your contact. They’ll appreciate the guidance—I know I would.
6. Discuss the bad stuff.
Your reference will almost surely be asked for your weaknesses or for examples of mistakes you’ve made. Although this can be awkward to discuss, it’s better to do so now than for your reference to have to make something up on the spot. You can mention a few different topics, and let her decide what to discuss.
7. Follow up.
Thank your reference for his assistance, and make sure to follow up with him about what happens.
This conversation should ideally happen over the phone. If so, you should follow up with an e-mail reiterating the major topics, and reminding your reference of the company name and position.
Problems with References: What Can Go Wrong
If you seem to lose the job offer just past the reference-checking stage, your references may (or may not) be the culprit. How will you ever know? I’ll leave it to you to analyze the ethics of this, but some candidates have engaged friends to call references and investigate these concerns.
A more direct approach is to just ask your references to run them through what they’ve been asked, and what their responses have been. Encourage them to be open about the negative things as well, because, after all, a 100 percent positive review is never credible.
If you still can’t figure it out, ask yourself these questions:
- Do your references have any major black marks themselves?
If they’ve been fired or significantly demoted, they may not offer a ton of credibility. - Are your references effective communicators?
When you challenged their positions on a matter, were you able to understand their reasoning? - Do your references communicate in a positive way?
Think back to your reviews. Did they focus on the positive or the negative? - Are they knowledgeable about your prior projects?
They may just need a refresher course on what you accomplished under them, or they may need to be yanked completely. - Are they familiar with what you’re doing now?
If you’ve lost touch with your references, invite them to grab coffee with you. Discuss what they’re working on—and what you’re doing.
Bad references can be caused by many things. If you suspect a contact is offering a negative review, you may want to play it safe and remove him entirely.
What If Your Bad Reference Is Your Former Boss?
If you have personal differences with your current boss, this will likely not present an issue. A prospective company should never call your current company without your permission.
But what if you’ve left your old company and your hopefully future company insists on speaking to your former boss? You have many options, and none of them involve asking someone to lie. (Never, ever ask a reference to lie. Do you really want someone to think of you as dishonest right before they talk about your weaknesses?)
First, you should call your old manager and discuss your concerns up front. Explain what you think your strengths were, and be blunt about your weaknesses. Without making excuses for yourself, tell her why these presented themselves in such a negative way, and how you’ve been working on them. What sort of progress have you made? This will deemphasize the weakness, and you may even be able to suggest less harmful vocabulary (such as “can occasionally get heated” instead of “has an angry temper”).
Second, if the review is particularly bad (such as being fired for exposing company secrets), you need to be up front about this with the new HR department. It’s better that they hear it from you, rather than being caught off-guard by your ex-manager.
Finally, you may be able to offer additional references in certain cases to compensate for a poor reference. Audrey, a technical sales representative, quit her job after being assigned a manager who frequently yelled at his employees for even small mistakes. She had no chance of improving this review. Instead, she explained the situation to her prospective employer and offered contact information for three former teammates. They would not only corroborate her story, but they would also offer a strong reference for her. She got the job.
Your Questions Answered
New Form, Same Great Content
Dear Gayle,
I’ve tried to write a cover letter multiple times, but each time I feel like I’m just turning my résumé into prose. Is this normal? And is it OK?
~R. T.
Dear R. T.,
Normal? Yes. OK? Maybe.
Many people hit the same issue, so if you do, it’s not the end of the world. A good part of the reason for a cover letter is to check that you can write. Employers can check your spelling, grammar, and structure just about as well in this boring, regurgitated form.
However, it may be a missed opportunity to give your employer more information than they can read on your résumé. Your goal here is to prove that you have the desired skills. You can do that using accomplishments (which will likely be repeated on your résumé), or by using slightly softer evidence. For example, to prove that you understand object-oriented design coding, you can say something like this:
Object-Oriented Design:
I taught a three-course sequence to the company’s developers on design patterns, which my manager said was “instrumental in raising the quality of our company’s code.”
Or:
Detail Oriented:
I was the “go to” person on any design doc, not only because I understood the company’s technology at a broad level, but also because I had a knack for picking up on issues that were otherwise overlooked.
Writing a cover letter like this is certainly much harder, but when you start getting calls that your competing candidates don’t, you’ll be thankful.
~Gayle
Full Disclosure
Dear Gayle,
Should I tell my manager that I’m looking for a new job? I’m coming to the end of a rotation program, so my leaving shouldn’t be a complete surprise, but it’s still not exactly encouraged.
I’m worried that prospective employers will contact my manager for a reference, and I wouldn’t want him to find out the wrong way.
~F. S.
Dear F. S.,
There’s no need to tell your manager. Your prospective companies should not contact any references without your explicit permission. Just to make extra sure, though, you should let the prospective company know the situation. It’s quite normal—in fact, the norm—for people to not tell their manager until they’ve accepted the new offer.
However, perhaps you have some reason to believe your manager stands a very good chance of finding out. If, for example, you know that your manager has a close friend at the companies or teams you’re applying, I wouldn’t count on this friend’s discretion. In this case, given that your leaving is not totally unexpected, discussing the situation with your manager might be wise.
What’s the worst he can do, fire you?
~Gayle
Dear Gayle,
After college, I founded my own business. We did OK for a little while and I hired a few people, but things took a turn for the worse.
Anyway, here I am, looking for work. Employers want to check references, but I’ve never had a boss. Who should I give?
~T. R.
Dear T. R.,
Former employees, clients, investors, and partners all make great references, and each have their pros and cons.
Investors make great references. They may not know you quite as well as a manager would in most jobs, but they’re the closest thing you have to a “boss.”
Your employees will know you extremely well, but with the power dynamic (even if it shouldn’t be an issue), employers may not trust that they’re being fully honest.
Clients and partners can also be useful. They’ll know certain aspects of you quite well, and won’t have much reason to be misleading like your employees might.
The best thing to do, really, is to explain the situation to the employer. Ask your recruiter which type would be the most valuable, and then track down the relevant references. There’s no reason you shouldn’t check with your recruiter about logistical questions like this.
Remember, though, that just because you didn’t list a particular client doesn’t mean your recruiter won’t track them down. A good reference checker, in fact, will do more than just check off a preapproved list.
~Gayle
Additional Resources
Please visit
www.careercup.com
for sample cover letters and other resources.
Interview Prep and Overview
Think you’ve got it rough? Look at it from the company’s perspective. A good hire is incredibly valuable, bad hires are even more costly, and interviews are a not-terribly-cheap way to cut their costs.
A typical Microsoft on-site interview for an entry-level software engineer costs the company over $1,000 in plane flights, hotels, and “man-hours.” Multiply that by the number of candidates who don’t get hired and you’re looking at over $10,000 just for the interviews. We haven’t even taken into account the paperwork process, signing bonuses, relocation, and all the recruiter overhead it takes to manage this process.
Hire someone bad and the company’s costs go up even more. Not only did the company waste money on this person’s salary, but the employee was likely a distraction to their team as well. Then—worst of all—in the United States, the company faces the risk of wrongful termination lawsuits. No wonder companies give so many interviews!
In the end, a company wants people who “get things done,” and résumé screening and interviews are a way to analyze you from this perspective. It wants people who are more than just smart; it wants people who motivate those around them, who set lofty goals and accomplish them, who act ethically and honestly.
While these are largely “fundamental” attributes of you or your background, the way that you communicate and respond to questions determines how a company reads such attributes. The eager candidate can—and should—prepare for the interview to help them put the best foot forward.
What Are Tech Companies Looking For?
Passion. Creativity. Initiative. Intelligence. And a “getting things done” attitude.
Tech companies operate a bit differently from the rest of corporate America. They don’t wear suits. Few employees arrive much before 10 am, due in part to horrendous traffic in tech hubs like Seattle and Silicon Valley. Post-lunch (or midmorning, or midafternoon) foosball and ping-pong games are standard.
They pride themselves on their funky and innovative culture, and they want people who will fit into this. “You have to prove why you are there, and that you
know
you fit within their community, that you enjoy the lifestyle,” said Andre, a (successful) Apple candidate. “The moment my interviewer said, ‘We are very informal’ I took off my tie.”
- Passion for technology.
Passion for technology can be shown through your coursework, but it doesn’t end there. Do you read tech news sources? Do you use technology in your day-to-day life (beyond just e-mail and basic web browsing)? Are you interested in finding new ways to leverage or improve technology? - Passion for the company.
Do you know the company’s products? Do you use them? Why or why not? What would you improve? - Creativity.
When asked to design something from scratch, can you brainstorm lots of features you’d want? When you’re asking to solve a problem, do you think outside the box and push back on assumptions or constraints? - Initiative.
How have you gone above and beyond? Have you started a blog? A business? Organized a charity auction? Remember that initiative might be something as nontraditional as putting on a photography show. - Getting things done.
Regardless of where the idea came from, do you have a demonstrated ability to accomplish great things? Think beyond just your academic or professional work: what have you done outside of work? - Intelligence.
Your GPA can be one show of intelligence, but people with GPAs well below a 3.0/4.0 can and do get hired at the best tech companies. Intelligence can be “tested” through problem-solving questions, or hinted at through your résumé.
At the end of the day, it comes down to this: can you communicate how you can help the company? Passion, creativity, initiative, intelligence, and a “getting things done” attitude are all signals of that.
How to Prepare
For at least the less technical aspects of an interview, preparation comes in three parts. You need to be able to answer questions about your prior work with illustrative examples. You need to understand the company so that you can tell your interviewer why you want to work there and what you’ll add. And, finally, you need to be able to ask interesting questions to your interviewer that demonstrate your research and interest.
Résumé and Experience Prep
Regardless of the position or company, almost every interview will include some discussion of your résumé. The more “hard skills” that a position requires, the less focus there will be on the résumé/experience discussion—but there will always be some.