At the very end of your job search, when a job offer is near, personal and professional references can become crucial. When applicants do not realize is that in launching your job search, securing good references should be one of the FIRST steps! Getting the best possible references is important, not only when you are looking for a job or career change, but as part of your on-going career development process.

Why are references so important? It is important that you have three or four people who really know you as a worker, and what you can do. These people have a working knowledge of your skills, strengths and weaknesses, your work style, your personality and can address the nitty gritty of how you will be as a worker, which employers do consider very important.

Layoffs and management shifts require that you constantly be on the lookout for people who can vouch for who you are and what you can do. If you are thinking about looking for a new job or career, contact your potential references and let them know that you are starting to look for a job. If you are still working, do this confidentially and discreetly, as you don’t want to jeopardize your present job.

References are also important because they can provide you with tips about potential openings. They know your work, so they can provide you with career advice. Calling them ahead of time to let them know your plans can put them on the alert if they learn of any appropriate openings. I have personally known candidates who have secured jobs by calling their references.

Alerting your references to your current career goals clues them in to what they should and shouldn’t say about you. You make them look intelligent and vice versa.

Getting and maintaining a list of references is a an on-going process and doesn’t stop when you get a job. As with your skills development, your reference list needs to be upgraded and revised along with your career development goals.

What do you do if you don’t have any references? If so, you need to deal with whatever that is, which is a whole issue in itself. Do you need to expand your network? If so, get “crackin”, because you never know when you’ll need to call on people to help you get your next position.

Don’t just look to your managers as your only source of references. Consider your clients, customers, other department managers, supervisors, and even vendors. Also expand your definition of potential references to include teachers, internship supervisors, volunteer coordinators, co-workers. All these people can give a potential employer a glimpse of who you are and what you can do.

VERY IMPORTANT: find out what your references are saying about you! Make sure that the people you are using as references are really working for you. I have heard of cases where candidates have thought their references were helping, when the reference was actually giving such “thorough” critiques that the candidate failed to get job offers. Another actual scenario was a reference who was “damning” with faint praise – saying things like, “Joe always shows up to work.” You would hope that Joe would do a lot more than just show up!

Finally, it is important to realize that the process is a two-way street: they help you, and they might need your help down the road. You should thank them of their help along the way, particularly when you land the job, and offer to return the favor.

A final note: although professional references do carry a great deal of weight, due to legal constraints, letters of references have become less meaningful, and therefore less critical. In other words, people are reluctant to put their true feelings on paper for fear of lawsuits. Therefore, what usually occurs is that people are vague, talk in generalities, and stick to “just the facts” – dates of employment, etc. Consequently, personal references don’t carry a great deal of weight with large companies whose reference checking procedures tend to be bureaucratic and invoke impending legal consequences.

References work best for you in the context of securing jobs though your network and in professional circles.