What to do about bland references?

[GMH74]

How is a potential employer meant to know anything about you if your last two employers just give very generic references from HR confirming name, date and job title? Is this fairly normal now or will a potential employer think it doesn't look very good? How are you meant to get round it?

Private sector has done that for ten years.

Perfectly normal.

Public sector seems to spill its guts so much its a miracle anyone gets anew job

I'm public sector and my last two employers have the policy of only giving bland references (really similar jobs). Do people have to put a personal reference too?

Litigation

I've never given anyone a reference other than they worked here from this date to this date, job title, etc

It's completely normal

Could you circumvent it by providing a third 'personal reference'? Explain that previous two employers have a policy to only provide bare minimum references but you have an old employer who can go into more detail if required?

@mudgestastic
What do you mean? I understand that this is probably why people will only give bland references these days but they're meaningless so what's the point and how do people get round this?

Well most employers accept them

The last few I've been asked to complete (for public and private sector) included, apart from the usual confirmation of employment, time off sick etc, the yes/no questions - do I think named person would have any issues doing the role offered, and would I employ them again. There was no obvious expectation to provide any further narrative.

I think this strikes a reasonable balance between a meaningful 'reference', and not delaying the recruitment process too much by waiting for referees to get round to completing a narrative reference. Which definitely works for me as both a recruiter and a referee.

Bland references aren’t meaningless. They confirm you worked where and when and reason for leaving. You’ll be amazed how many people lie about these things, in particular being fired from previous job.

A lot of companies have moved away from more extensive references because there often prove a hinderance in respect of social mobility, tend to favour those who can network etc.

I never give out sickness, why would you do that?

Current employer did not care about references on a personal performance level. Just needed confirmation that I worked where I said I had worked. No further detail required...

Just confirmation of dates and role are the norm.

@topcat2014

I never give out sickness, why would you do that?

Because it's almost always a question in pro forma reference requests? Just number of days taken in the last year - no info about reason for sick leave.

This has been a pretty standard question on reference requests since I started working in the mid 90s.

I never answer the sickness question.

What happens if they withdraw the offer and you end up with someone back on your team who hates the job?

I find that bland ones just confirming dates of employment are usually leaving something unsaid and tend to make my radar go up.

I provide a lot of references, 9 out of 10 times I am only asked to fill a questionnaire with work dates, salaries and a small number of question asking from whether the person is reliable to if they are drug users and nothing else.

The only times I am allowed a reference in prose is for menial jobs or very high security ones.

So, they may have sent you just what they thought you wanted (the bland type).

@BoodleBug51
That's exactly what I'm worried people will think.
What do people do when that is company policy?

Trust me employers don’t care. They only care about huge amounts of sickness or disciplinary matters. A bland factual reference is just as good as an over the top gushing reference.

But everyone is saying a bland reference is Normal? So why panicking? Because one person, clearly an outlier, has it make their radar go up?

I've never had more than a bland reference, and never struggled to secure employment. Because each new employer also only provides a bland reference.

Infact, in this job, I didn't even give them reference details and so they've never had one for me.

Many larger companies have a policy that any reference requests can only be completed by HR, which means that in most cases the HR person doing the reference won’t know the person concerned from Adam so they can’t do any more than state facts.

I'm afraid I do bland factual references when I don't have anything positive to say. What else can I do?