References are total bs way of determining anything anyway, obviously you're going to talk with the reference ahead of time to make sure they say the right stuff.
Typically recruiters ask for references so they can pitch their firm's services to your references. If they want to know how well you program, show them the source code. They can get a good idea about your character in the face-to-face interview. --- Terrence Brannon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > This message is a cleaner re-write of an earlier > assault on the > irksome convention of some employers requiring > references as part of > the interview process. > > URL to previous discussion thread: > > > http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/msg00433.html > > WHY REFERENCES SUCK IN GENERAL > > 1/ They require the time of the reference. 15 > minutes per reference > phone call means 2-3 hours out of each references > work week during a > typical job search. Your reference (and his boss) > will love you for > taking up his time. > > 2/ The reference and/or his company can get in legal > trouble. Oracle, > for example, has a policy that its employees will > not give references > to former employees. The extent of referent > information is manager > name and time and location of employment. I worked > at Oracle. I can't get > a character or technical reference from them. I love > the skeptical looks I > get when I try to explain this to people. > > 3/ They allow a bad boss one more shot at tyranny. > If you worked for a > jerk, then what? As an extreme example, assume that > Martin Luther King > worked for 3 closet white supremacists. Would he > ever get a good > reference? Probably not. But that doesn't mean that > he is a bad > person. > > 4/ People move, retire, die, or go belly up: I > worked during the dot-com > era. That's 3 years worth of references that I will > never be able to > resource because all of those people have bitten the > dust. I guess > that makes me a bad person. > > WHY TECHNICAL REFERENCES SUCK > > 1/ If you want to know how good I am technically, > break out the > appropriate technical test. > > WHY CHARACTER REFERENCES SUCK > > 1/ Let's assume that a character reference is a good > way of knowing > how good person X is. If this is true, then you > really must have > references for the references of person X before you > can trust the > references of person X. And you must have references > for the > references of the references of the references of > person X before you > can know how good the references for person X are. > > Logically: > > X good => (references for X good) > (references for X good) => (references for > (references for X) good) > (references for (references for X) good) => > (references for (references for (references > for X)) good) > > So we see that we have a recursive and > non-terminating algorithm for > determining if X is good. > > The self-referential unsolvable nature of the > character reference > proof system shows its fallibility. > ===== Anthony Ettinger [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.apwebdesign.com Instant Messengers: 1) yahoo im: apwebdesign 2) aol im: apwebdesignxl 3) msn im: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 4) icq im: 659139 __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Finance Tax Center - File online. File on time. http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html
