New job needs full references - current employers have a rule against giving these

[m0therofdragons]

I've had a provisional job offer and gave to references - current manager and a man who trained me over the years. Trainer is from an external company so that's all good but current company has a rule (after being taken to court years ago over inaccurate references) that they will confirm job role, hours, pay and sick leave but not give any opinions on any employee.

New company says they must have a full reference from any manager from the last 10 years. I've had a few but I've worked in the same company for 14 years so all are tied by the rules (or one is apparently somewhere in the Caribbean but no clue how to contact).

I'm stuffed. It's a senior role and I'm going to lose out because of this. My work and appraisal history are exemplary but no one can officially say so without ending up in a disciplinary. Manager is happy to give verbal reference (which isn't really allowed) but new employer says it must be in writing.

Help, what do I do?

Well to make this work you are going to have to get the policy of one of those two employers waived. You are more likely to be successful at this with your new employer than your old one.

Policies like your current employer has in place are very common, for obvious reasons, so if your new employer persists in sticking to this at all costs, to the extent that they withdraw offers of employment made to good candidates, they are going to end up with a recruitment problem and some very frustrated recruiting managers.

Assuming your potential new line manager is happy to accept you based on the information you are able to provide, he/she needs to convince HR that an exception should be made, and that (say) written confirmation plus a good verbal reference, plus copies of annual appraisals should be sufficient.

How much discussion have you had with your potential new line manager (who presumably recruited you and is keen to bring you onboard) about this issue?

Do you have any colleagues who have worked with you who have since left and are therefore not bound by the company policy anymore? Does it have to be a manager? I was in a similar situation where everything could be "coffee worked here from a to b doing c" and an ex-colleague said he'd give me a reference.

Do you have a LinkedIn profile with lots of contacts? Just by being on LinkedIn would suggest they are "friendly" people (I.e. not managers you couldn't wait to see the back of! ).

Linkedin can be a quick way of getting in touch with someone quickly thru PM-ing, asking them if they will be your referee.

I've suggested a colleague I've worked with for years. He recently left. He was in a more senior position initially but latterly we were the same banding. I'm hoping that's enough as I worked with him on and off for 14 years.

Going through all my previous managers there is the one who left his wife and kids and disappeared to the Caribbean, the one who was escorted by security from his desk (never found out why), the one who left due to stress after turning up at work in his pjs with a gun.... honestly I haven't thought about it before but I've worked with some interesting characters 😳

Current manager has been here for 7 years. That's all of the except my first manager from my first job but that was 19 years ago so although we're friends on Facebook I'm not sure what he'd say other than my kid's pictures are cute on fb.

Lots of organisations do this, including the one I work for. HR will give factual length of sevice, sick leave etc type references. Managers and colleagues are allowed to give character references at their own discretion, so the parts of a “full” reference will come from more that one person.

I know it's fairly common but this big employer has not come across it before. They insist on written. Hopefully colleague is accepted as a legitimate person to give me a reference.

Are you sure you haven't misunderstood what they want as a reference? Where I work, we insist on a reference from the current employer, although that can be waived after a risk assessment if it's really not possible, that's not common knowledge. However, what you describe with dates, pay etc would be considered a "full" reference here.

IME, references are only used these days to make sure people worked where and when they said they did - a gushing reference isn't worth anything anyway. If you have someone you want to get rid of, you're not going write a bad one.

@Tipsntoes what you say makes total sense and has always been dh's experience. The whole recruitment process was rather bizarre and they seem unsure how to do recruitment (definitely different to my style). Unfortunately I really want the job. They've emailed my new reference so hopefully that's a good sign.

"I know it's fairly common but this big employer has not come across it before."

I don't believe them. I've never worked anywhere where the reference policy is anything other than 'bare facts only'.