Reference Problems!

MoodyMand45

I recently managed to land a civil service type admin role as part of my Job Search  but i am having many issues with my unreliable references.
Unfortunately 2 of the references i am relying on are now gone; one was a place i volunteered at and the other a former employer for many years.
The employer has informed me they are unable to accept the paper references i have and need to speak to active referees by telephone to confirm.
The Charity i volunteered for has gone along with the staff and my former employer went into liquidation in 2020 and i have so far been unable to locate them.

The new employer told me i have 3 months to get the Information to satisfy their requirements.
I can't get a GP reference as i have 12 Doctors at my surgery and my old School closed years ago, This would not be the first time i have faced reference problems but finding new volunteering has been difficult due to covid recently. The employer said two work based references and one character which must not be a friend or family member.

I doubt i can find a solution to this with short notice so does anyone have any ideas on how to be more prepared for this in future as this is the third time i have been here, i have took time on the application, passed all the assessments, behavior's etc.

General_Grant

MoodyMand45 said:

I recently managed to land a civil service type admin role as part of my Job Search  but i am having many issues with my unreliable references.
Unfortunately 2 of the references i am relying on are now gone; one was a place i volunteered at and the other a former employer for many years.
The employer has informed me they are unable to accept the paper references i have and need to speak to active referees by telephone to confirm.
The Charity i volunteered for has gone along with the staff and my former employer went into liquidation in 2020 and i have so far been unable to locate them.

The new employer told me i have 3 months to get the Information to satisfy their requirements.
I can't get a GP reference as i have 12 Doctors at my surgery and my old School closed years ago, This would not be the first time i have faced reference problems but finding new volunteering has been difficult due to covid recently. The employer said two work based references and one character which must not be a friend or family member.

I doubt i can find a solution to this with short notice so does anyone have any ideas on how to be more prepared for this in future as this is the third time i have been here, i have took time on the application, passed all the assessments, behavior's etc.

If you have pieces of paper then they are termed testimonials, not references.  Testimonials would be just too easy to forge and so the prospective employer does need to obtain references from referees.

If your GP surgery really doesn't allocate patients to specific GPs (mine does) but your prospective employer would accept one from a GP then they should be willing to accept something from any GP in the practice.  However, unless they were looking for your medical history, I'm not sure that this is much use.

If the testimonials you have are from named individuals, can you try to contact the person through LinkedIn and ask whether they would be willing to confirm the content?

What level of admin job are you seeking?

yksi

If you don't have your immediate manager from these two places, do you have contacts for any co-workers instead?

Have you clarified from the employer what exactly the doctor's reference needs to show - perhaps it is just that MoodyMand45 has been a patient of our clinic since 1992, etc.

Undervalued

MoodyMand45 said:

I recently managed to land a civil service type admin role as part of my Job Search  but i am having many issues with my unreliable references.
Unfortunately 2 of the references i am relying on are now gone; one was a place i volunteered at and the other a former employer for many years.
The employer has informed me they are unable to accept the paper references i have and need to speak to active referees by telephone to confirm.
The Charity i volunteered for has gone along with the staff and my former employer went into liquidation in 2020 and i have so far been unable to locate them.

The new employer told me i have 3 months to get the Information to satisfy their requirements.
I can't get a GP reference as i have 12 Doctors at my surgery and my old School closed years ago, This would not be the first time i have faced reference problems but finding new volunteering has been difficult due to covid recently. The employer said two work based references and one character which must not be a friend or family member.

I doubt i can find a solution to this with short notice so does anyone have any ideas on how to be more prepared for this in future as this is the third time i have been here, i have took time on the application, passed all the assessments, behavior's etc.

Unless your medical needs are such that you see your GP very regularly I can't really see how they can provide a useful reference for employment purposes.

Ultimately a potential employer can decide what kind of reference is acceptable to them. All you can do is explain the circumstances to them and hope that they will show some flexibility. They may well, but they don't have to.

Otherwise, for the future, all you can do is either find some short term work from a more flexible employer (small business ??) and / or charity work etc, use them as a reference for a more established job and use that as a stepping stone.

No easy answer I'm afraid.

TELLIT01

General_Grant said:

If your GP surgery really doesn't allocate patients to specific GPs (mine does) but your prospective employer would accept one from a GP then they should be willing to accept something from any GP in the practice.

Having a specific, named GP doesn't mean that is who you will see.  There is a requirement for GP practices to allocate patients to GPs but that is more about controlling the number of patients on a surgery list than anything else.  My 'named GP' is actually the senior partner at my surgery and he rarely actually sees patients any more.  If I demanded to see him I would certainly have to wait many months.

MoodyMand45

General_Grant said:

MoodyMand45 said:

I recently managed to land a civil service type admin role as part of my Job Search  but i am having many issues with my unreliable references.
Unfortunately 2 of the references i am relying on are now gone; one was a place i volunteered at and the other a former employer for many years.
The employer has informed me they are unable to accept the paper references i have and need to speak to active referees by telephone to confirm.
The Charity i volunteered for has gone along with the staff and my former employer went into liquidation in 2020 and i have so far been unable to locate them.

The new employer told me i have 3 months to get the Information to satisfy their requirements.
I can't get a GP reference as i have 12 Doctors at my surgery and my old School closed years ago, This would not be the first time i have faced reference problems but finding new volunteering has been difficult due to covid recently. The employer said two work based references and one character which must not be a friend or family member.

I doubt i can find a solution to this with short notice so does anyone have any ideas on how to be more prepared for this in future as this is the third time i have been here, i have took time on the application, passed all the assessments, behavior's etc.

If you have pieces of paper then they are termed testimonials, not references.  Testimonials would be just too easy to forge and so the prospective employer does need to obtain references from referees.

If your GP surgery really doesn't allocate patients to specific GPs (mine does) but your prospective employer would accept one from a GP then they should be willing to accept something from any GP in the practice.  However, unless they were looking for your medical history, I'm not sure that this is much use.

If the testimonials you have are from named individuals, can you try to contact the person through LinkedIn and ask whether they would be willing to confirm the content?

What level of admin job are you seeking?

It is a basic AO role, i was told AA are being phased out!

MoodyMand45

yksi said:

If you don't have your immediate manager from these two places, do you have contacts for any co-workers instead?

Have you clarified from the employer what exactly the doctor's reference needs to show - perhaps it is just that MoodyMand45 has been a patient of our clinic since 1992, etc.

yksi said:

If you don't have your immediate manager from these two places, do you have contacts for any co-workers instead?

Have you clarified from the employer what exactly the doctor's reference needs to show - perhaps it is just that MoodyMand45 has been a patient of our clinic since 1992, etc.

They haven't really told me to go after a Doctors reference specifically but the guy on the phone just suggested it knowing i was struggling to get a reference elsewhere!

Undervalued

MoodyMand45 said:

General_Grant said:

MoodyMand45 said:

I recently managed to land a civil service type admin role as part of my Job Search  but i am having many issues with my unreliable references.
Unfortunately 2 of the references i am relying on are now gone; one was a place i volunteered at and the other a former employer for many years.
The employer has informed me they are unable to accept the paper references i have and need to speak to active referees by telephone to confirm.
The Charity i volunteered for has gone along with the staff and my former employer went into liquidation in 2020 and i have so far been unable to locate them.

The new employer told me i have 3 months to get the Information to satisfy their requirements.
I can't get a GP reference as i have 12 Doctors at my surgery and my old School closed years ago, This would not be the first time i have faced reference problems but finding new volunteering has been difficult due to covid recently. The employer said two work based references and one character which must not be a friend or family member.

I doubt i can find a solution to this with short notice so does anyone have any ideas on how to be more prepared for this in future as this is the third time i have been here, i have took time on the application, passed all the assessments, behavior's etc.

If you have pieces of paper then they are termed testimonials, not references.  Testimonials would be just too easy to forge and so the prospective employer does need to obtain references from referees.

If your GP surgery really doesn't allocate patients to specific GPs (mine does) but your prospective employer would accept one from a GP then they should be willing to accept something from any GP in the practice.  However, unless they were looking for your medical history, I'm not sure that this is much use.

If the testimonials you have are from named individuals, can you try to contact the person through LinkedIn and ask whether they would be willing to confirm the content?

What level of admin job are you seeking?

It is a basic AO role, i was told AA are being phased out!

The problem is that when applying for this type of role in a huge organisation there are likely to be plenty of appropriately qualified candidates who are able to tick the usual reference boxes. The HR department simply has to put a few suitable candidates before the interview panel. If they can do this easily they have no incentive to involve themselves in extra work, or run the (remote) risk of changing their normal procedures, to accommodate somebody in an unusual position regarding references.

As I suggested earlier, unless you are lucky and can get to speak to somebody in their HR who is prepared to "think outside the box" you are going to struggle. I honestly think you would be better trying to get a position with a small organisation, where independent thinking is easier, then use that as a stepping stone towards the civil service if that is where you want to be.

ChasingtheWelshdream

I complete pre-employment checks for a government organisation and would usually expect your most recent employer and one other. The 'other' depends on the role you applied for, but can include a character reference. The most recent employer can also (and often does) simply provide factual information.

We would never accept a reference from the applicant themselves, it must always come from the referee in direct response to our request.

Having said that, we do have a list of suggested referees for those struggling to provide recent employment referees for various reasons. This includes dozens of professions, including teachers, nurses, various officials - even licensees (pub landlords) and company directors. There is rarely someone that can't be found. We will talk through options and help you find someone suitable. The only criteria is the referee must not be a friend or relative. 

A "former employer of many years" may well be irrelevant if not recent anyway. 3 months is quite some time to provide information to your new employer so don't give up. Although unfamiliar with Civil Service, I would be very surprised if they did not offer more comprehensive help.

Can I ask when you last worked or volunteered?

TBagpuss

Do you have any friend who could give a character reference? Ideally someone who is in a management position or has a  such as teacher, doctor or lawyer, even if you haven't worked for them?
I think also trying to track down any individual manager or coworker from your previous positions even though the organisations themselves no longer exist - try Linked in and a general google search