Can I Wear My Nose Ring to the Interview?: A Crash Course in Finding, Landing, and Keeping Your First Real Job (22 page)

You’ll provide your references on a prepared list, not on your résumé. You’ll choose the names very carefully, and you’ll prepare your recommenders for a call, providing them with as much information as possible.

Be strategic in deciding whom to ask for a recommendation: Don’t just reflexively go after your three most recent supervisors. If possible, your first choices should be people who have openly admired you and your work. Also consider your recommenders’ personalities. Ideally, they speak and write well and have the ability to be enthusiastic, positive, and responsive. If you know a particular supervisor is notoriously bad about responding to calls and e-mails, try to choose someone else; after a few attempts, your prospective employer may give up.

Whatever their qualifications, the best references are those who know you well; even better are those who work in fields relevant to the jobs for which you are applying. Appropriate parties include:

Previous employers or internship supervisors

Colleagues

Clients

Volunteer supervisors.

If you have no employment directly relevant to the job you’re pursuing, that’s okay. If you’ve had a minimum-wage job or walked dogs or babysat, your managers and employers can speak to your maturity, responsibility, trustworthiness, punctuality, and other good qualities.

If you don’t have professional references, consider using a coach, piano, dance, theater, art, or voice teacher—someone who can attest to the fact that you are diligent, disciplined, and self-motivated, that you ask questions when you don’t understand things, give 200 percent to the task at hand, and work well with others.

If you’ve just graduated from college and have never had a job or internship, you may also use professors; the key is to prepare them adequately. (For tips on helping a professor through the reference process, see pages 107–109.)

I’
VE SEEN REFERENCES SO INAPPROPRIATE
they cast doubt on the candidate’s judgment. Here’s a short list of people who shouldn’t appear on your reference sheet:

The senior in charge of the school paper for which you wrote some articles. Employers don’t want to talk to college kids—with rare exceptions, they won’t have had the real-world experience necessary to evaluate a candidate.

Your roommate. I know what you’re thinking—“But we lived together for four years; she knows me better than anyone!” Even if that former roommate is now working in the field you’re trying to get into, forget it. If a friend or roommate works at a company you’re applying to, include her name as the lead in your cover letter—she’s probably how you heard about the job in the first place.

A best friend from childhood or a family friend. (“But she’s really objective and can be critical of me because she’s known me my whole life.”) Nope. The one exception: an adult who knows someone at the company where you’re applying. If you have worked with him directly, by all means use him as an official reference; if not, mention him in a cover letter and have him put in a good word.

Your family physician. Sounds outrageous, but I’ve actually seen it done (once). This one confused me. If the candidate had been applying for a job in medicine or to med school, I
might
have considered it valid. (His explanation: “But he knows me inside and out.”) Same goes for your priest or rabbi—inappropriate unless you’re applying for a religious position or he supervised volunteer work you did in the community.

To sum it all up: I’m talking about
professional
references. There
are
character and personal references, but they are less commonly called for.

Q. What if I truly have no references, never mind a choice of references?

A.
I think you may be exaggerating, but I’ll take your question at face value and assume that you’ve never had a positive relationship with a professor or volunteered or had an internship. If you really feel you have no one to ask, you have to go out and seek experiences through which you’ll acquire references. This might seem backward, but it’s not a bad strategy. Let’s say you’re interested in getting into television. Take an internship, temp job, and/or a course in that area, and soon you’ll have references. But make sure the experience is substantial enough to talk about—an employer won’t want a reference from someone you temped with for one day.

Once you’ve gotten to know some of the people at that internship, job, or course, think about whom you might ask for a letter or verbal recommendation. Express your interest in the field up front—if a supervisor knows you want to learn more, you might get the chance to participate in a wider range of activities.

After you’ve mastered the basics of your new job, take initiative and volunteer to do things outside your job description—with the blessing of your supervisor, of course. He will probably be happy to delegate work to a competent and enthusiastic new employee. And that will translate into kudos for you.

Q. May I use references from overseas?

A.
You may use an international reference, but make sure it’s easy for the employer to contact him or her. E-mail is usually the simplest medium, but provide phone numbers with explicit dialing instructions and time differences. An employer doesn’t want to have to look up country codes and try to figure out what time it is in Zimbabwe. He’ll move on to the next résumé if you make his life too difficult.

Q. What if I work in a family business?

A.
I don’t want to talk to your father or your mother or your sister or brother or aunt or uncle—unless you worked in a family business and there truly is no one else who could speak with me on your behalf. But this is unlikely. Even if the business is run by your mom and dad, you presumably have clients who could serve as references. Don’t try to fake me out if you happen to have a different last name from your parents or other relatives. If I find out what the real connection is, you’ll look like you were trying to hide this information—which you probably were. That was sneaky. Now I don’t trust you.