Reference advice

[Bigfluffybear]

Hello. My sister phoned me in a state as shes looking for a new job and is struggling with references.
She's been in the nhs for 11 years and in current role for 2.5 years (9 months on mat leave). The job prior to this job was awful and shed applied for bank work since and her old boss won't give her a reference. Does she...

1. Put the old job down and try her luck again.

2 say she was at the job before old job longer hence skip that job from cv and get a reference from the old old job

She told me the old job she cant get a reference from the trust was tiny with a tiny hr that has now folded so she cant approach them and worried it'll look bad if she puts hr on for a reference. What would you do?

I would put HR on for a reference, it won't look bad at all and a new employer can still get a reference from HR as they will have her attendance records and presumably no grievances on record. I wouldn't lie and put she was in the old job for longer because if a new employer found dishonesty on her CV she would be likely to lose her job.

Or if HR has folded like she says I'm sure they could find this information out. Honesty is the best policy on CVs.

I had a situation where an employee lied on his CV and even though he was a brilliant employee and his intentions were good the powers over me wouldn't let me keep him. It will get found out.

How far do the nhs look back for references? She thinks it 3 years and by the time she gets a new job it'll be 3 years

Does she have anyone else from the team who can act as a Reference? It doesn't have to be a line manager as such