References

[Sparklette]

I interviewed for a job that has now sent me a request for 5 references. States only managers or supervisors. I’ve had the same manager and supervisor for a decade. Do I need to dig up contacts for jobs prior? I don’t even know where to find those people. Ugh. Recruiter has a VM out of office all week.

[davewill]

Send a bit excessive to me. Try searching on LinkedIn for your prior coworkers.

[cookderosa]

I interviewed for a job that has now sent me a request for 5 references. States only managers or supervisors. I’ve had the same manager and supervisor for a decade. Do I need to dig up contacts for jobs prior? I don’t even know where to find those people. Ugh. Recruiter has a VM out of office all week.

Seriously?? Ugh. Maybe you can find other officials within your company.
I have a similar "problem" in that I worked for my previous employer for 18 years. 14 years same supervisor, the guy before him that I had for my first 4 is long gone.
5 supervisor references?? What the heck.

[jsd]

Do they have to be managers/sups you directly reported to? What about your current managers's peer managers who you don't directly report to, but may be familiar with your work?

It does seem excessive.

[Sparklette]

I agree that 5 sounds excessive. This whole job applying gig is really strange to me. So I had another set of eyes look at the email requesting references. It actually links to a webpage with a form to fill out that specifies listing a supervisor or manager reference for the last 5 roles and explains to do this in reverse chronological order. So, I guess I just list the same people for all the roles listed on my resume.

[jsd]

Yeah, if you had various roles that had the same manager, i guess that's all you can really do

[Merlin]

That is a pretty crazy request, however, I suspect that is probably an HR standard at their company. It sounds like that request is targeted towards millennials since they normally only stay in each job for 1-3 years before moving on, so tend to build up a number of supervisors. I'd just explain that you've been in the same job and haven't had different managers. If it's a required form, I'd just list the same position and manager in each entry. They can't expect you to track down managers you've not been in contact with for more than a decade.

I think it's odd that they're requiring exclusively supervisor references too... typically personal references are a mix of professional references. When I ask for references, I like to see a supervisor, a peer, and a subordinate, though in a lot of cases I don't even ask for them anymore since anyone with a brain will choose references that have been prepped and/or will be sure to speak well of them. I tend to leverage backchannel references (people in my network who might know of the candidate or know people who worked with them) rather than ask for personal references. But then again, my industry is pretty small so there is generally only 2-3 degrees of separation at most.

[cannoda]

I interviewed for a job that has now sent me a request for 5 references. States only managers or supervisors. I’ve had the same manager and supervisor for a decade. Do I need to dig up contacts for jobs prior? I don’t even know where to find those people. Ugh. Recruiter has a VM out of office all week.

Excessive? More like insane.

If I had to do that, I would have to track down bosses from out-of-state for jobs held in the eighties.

[burbuja0512]

I would really review the company. The request is ridiculous. They do know how easy it is to make up references, don't they? I've got a ton of people I used to work with that would happily be my "supervisor" on a phone call. AND it would be hard to tell on LinkedIn due to ambiguous titles.

I would NEVER do this of course, but I always think companies that do references like this are kind of asking for trouble. Honest people can sometimes have trouble finding references for a variety of reasons. But dishonest people will always be able to find great references! No clue why companies don't realize this and I hope that they are a solid company in all other aspects. Bureaucracy is normal in HR departments, but just make sure that it's not a taste of things to come.