The best way to lose your referee

Almost every day I am talking to recruiters.  They often sound very enthusiastic, making good first impression and promising to follow up almost daily the progress of your application.

They often ask for references, at least 3 and sometime more.  That makes me to disturb other people from their daily job and ask them taking calls from strangers.

Some recruiters probably bother referees asking if they can also source their projects and offer whatever other services and building their networks with my connections.

Now think about best way to lose a good referee?  Right, providing the contact to some less professional recruiter and next time he or she will not even answer the phone.

Those most talkative guys usually disappear first, after wasting so much of your time.

Still you want to treat them well and not calling them idiots directly, because they are all same people rotating from one agency to another.  And sometime even the most dumb recruiter can bring you a good project, or at least this is what you are hoping for!

Think for a second, how many agencies are usually working for the same job role, and think what are your chances of getting this role even if you have best references in the world?  I would be very optimistic to say chances are probably 10 out of 100.  Such probability means disturbing on average same contacts 10 times to get a single project.  Now think about some “jokers” offering you potential 5 days project and still asking for references?

Two of my best freelance and most long-term projects hired me without any references, but with a client interviews.  That is exactly the right tool to hire the right person.

I am not in business for building networks for recruitment agencies or provide on job training for recent graduates in those agencies!

Taking this opportunity let me apologise in front of my valued network about those reference requests!  I hate them as much as you do.