"references are just to confirm someone’s worked at the company and the dates"

[MedSchoolRat]

I've seen that claim, in the subject title, made a lot on MN.

I'm intrigued because I work in academia.

"just to confirm someone’s worked at the company and the dates" would be considered completely unacceptable for scientist or academic jobs.
You'd literally be told to go get another referee.
In meantime, we'd be wondering what someone did that was so bad that they could only get such an uninformative reference. It would totally count against you.

What "industry" do you work in, and would your reference people be expected to say something personal about you?

I'm finding it funny that some replies are:

"can't trust a wordy reference because it's probably completely insincere only written to get rid of bad worker"

and others are

"can't trust a wordy reference because it's probably due too sincere but based on ingrained prejudice"

... and besides, the insincere reference: how would this become less insincere if said out loud over phone?

The too-sincere reference: how would this be less prejudiced if received verbally over phone.

"everyone knows each other in my small industry" gossip must be subject to the same too-sincere reasons-to-lie prejudices. So basically, never trust what anyone says about anyone in any context. Ever. It's all prejudiced & people have severe motives to lie.

I think I can agree that gossip is often a wrong thing, true!!

We run a business in a skilled trade. We find as it's such a small pool of staff locally, we tend to get asked for phone references rather than anything in writing. These tend to be far more reliable and honest.

IT within Financial services. It's now normal to just give dates and job title.

Banking. Only ever role and dates of employment.

NHS references where I work now come from HR and are literally services dates and sickness dates over last 3 years. Your line manager doesn't even get the request any more!

Are they allowed to ask about sickness?! I’m surprised by that.

I don't live in the UK, but written references aren't common here any more. You simply provide the name and phone numbers of referees on your CV.

Any sector that involves safer recruitment, you have to ask about suitability to work with young people and children, any previous disciplinary regarding safeguarding, ongoing investigations as part of the reference.

You can only be sued successfully if the reference is inaccurate. But many employers do worry that they will be sued if they give a bad reference and, even if they won, they would have to spend time defending the case and the ex-employee probably wouldn't be able to cover their legal costs.

In my view, references are unreliable. I've known employers give a good reference to someone they want to get rid of and a bad reference to someone they want to keep. There may be fields where this is different, but most private sector employers that are big enough to have an HR department will only give dates of employment and, possibly, job title in my experience.

Corporate finance/ professional services. It’s usual only to give basic dates of employment, etc.

references are unreliable

written or chat over the phone... right? In fact, why trust that dates worked is correct information? Why would that be reliable but nothing else is?

I've had sudden Cynicism-fueled insight into why dates-only refs became standard. PP are wrong...

Imagine Teri works for Company A & applied for job at Company B.

Company A does not want to pay anyone at Company A to write a ref for Teri. Company A saves money by only confirming dates.

Maybe Teri is a good employee at Company A. But what if Teri turns into nightmare staff at Company B. Company A doesn't want to be sued by Company B for making Teri sound nice. So Company A refuses to say hardly anything about Teri.

I feel that those reasons far more convincing than anything PP wrote.

It's hardly major insight OP

Someone still needs to write the reference, so it might save some time but that's negligible. The second point is exactly why dates and job title only are confirmed and usually via HR rather than a manager - not necessarily because Company B can sue (let's face it someone could be great in one job but the next job might not work out for a whole host of reasons - personal or combination/culture fit) but because Teri has the right to ask to see their data and therefore could potentially raise a claim if something is not factually correct/is hearsay/something is related to a protected characteristic etc.

Businesses just can't take the risk of a manager writing something that will ultimately cost a lot of time and effort to sort out

Civil Service dates employment began-ended or ongoing. Job title and that no disciplinary action is ongoing. That is why employers now he want potential candidates to do in tray exercises or uses online tests for suitability for job role.

@GreyGrey just number of days, yes.

That's been the norm in every organisation I've come across.

Corporate law. Only ever job title and dates.

As OP says, it’s primarily about not wishing to engage in a process with no benefits for the reference giver but a large potential downside (being sued by the next employer for giving too good a reference or by the employee for giving too bad a reference).