Online Identity and Reputation

Post 1/3: How to manage your professional reputation

Post 2/3: Building your Reference Network

Post 3/3: Tools to build and manage your reference network

The systems used to manage reputation on specific e-commerce sites (eBay, PriceMinister,…) help sellers and buyers achieve recognition as « good sellers » (those who deliver within the agreed-upon time frame) or « good buyers » (those who pay for their order).

Freelancers have at their disposal a number of sites they can use to connect with potential clients. For example on Odesk, a website dedicated to computer specialists, each project is evaluated with a gold-star system (ranging from 1 to 5) along several dimensions. This facilitates the evaluation of freelancers’ reputation.

However, besides these particular cases, how can a professional’s reputation be evaluated?

It is customary for recruiters and employers to evaluate the reputation of a professional based on his references and his recommendations (either written, in the form of a letter of recommendation, or oral).

After an interview, these 2 elements enable a recruiter to validate his impression of the candidate and to further explore certain aspects of the candidate’s career path and personality. In this respect, they provide invaluable insights into the candidate’s reputation.

As a professional, it is therefore crucial to actively and effectively manage your references throughout your career, and not solely when looking for employment. The goal is to build a durable professional reputation.

I. Who are your references?

In most countries the emphasis is put on professional references; but in some countries, however, social references will also be of interest.

Depending on the position you seek, you can choose your professional references from among your former managers, colleagues, associates, clients, suppliers or partners. If you’re just starting out in your professional career, or if you’re a student, you can reach out to your former professors.

If you present social references, you can choose friends or people from your social or community-based network, but obviously not family members (zero credibility!). One should take note, however, that for particular recruiters, references from friends, neighbors or parents, carry no weight, no matter the country.

The time to build one’s network is when everything is running smoothly. It will be a little late to do so when everything’s already gone to pot. In general, if you remain in your corner, help will not be there for you on the day when something goes wrong. The same principle applies for your references. It is better to think about capitalizing on your references when everything’s going well rather than wait to be in the unemployment line. Do you know the difference between a winner and a loser? A loser has a plan in case something goes well; a winner a plan in case something goes wrong. Once unemployed, in a couple of months you could lose touch with your former colleagues.

Being fired is not the only thing that can destroy your career. So can office gossip. It is therefore crucial to seek the kind of references that will highlight your professional qualities and your skills, and defend your reputation if necessary, any time it’s feasible.

To summarize, your references are all the people in your professional and social circles who might become part of your network of references. This network will help show that you are trustworthy and defend your reputation. In the next post, we will deal with the particulars of how to go about building and managing one’s network of references (or trust network).

II. How do recruiters carry out their work?

For a recruiter, to call references is to try to get an insight into the candidate’s actions as seen by others (this is the so-called 360° feedback).

A. How does the recruiter select your references?

In general, a recruiter will ask a candidate to provide him with three references, two former managers and a person of the candidate’s choosing for example (the candidate will have to justify his choice).

Depending on the profiles and the job opening, the recruiter will try to obtain information from different people who have known the candidate at various points along his career path, in different roles and positions. The goal is to gather information from different echelons of the workplace hierarchy: superiors, colleagues, associates, suppliers and clients.

Recruiters often prioritize the views of former managers because a priori they are in the best position to judge their subordinates’ abilities and to notice up-and-comers. The views and opinions of colleagues and clients are less relevant because they lack an overall picture.

In general, the recruiter will seek to:

1 – Validate the candidate’s previous performance: results achieved, pattern of available-resource utilization (optimal or not), strategic vision, skill set, expertise, etc… This is to verify that the opening is suitable for the candidate and that he will be able to handle the job’s evolving requirements.

2 – Evaluate the candidate’s personality: reliability, responsiveness, effectiveness, people skills, ethics, ambition, potential, autonomy, creativity, thoroughness, adaptability, ability to work in a team, head for business, etc…

B. How does the conversation between the recruiter and the person providing the reference unfold?

The recruiter contacts the person providing the reference, most often by phone.

1. The recruiter wants to make sure that your reference (the person he’s talking to) is reliable. As the conversation proceeds, the recruiter will gauge the way they answer his questions, their understanding of the subject, their spontaneity, their silences and above all, the quality of the information they provide. The goal is to determine if your reference is sincere or if they’re withholding something. The recruiter thus checks the sincerity of the words spoken.
In the event that the information provided by different people does not match, the recruiter will dig deeper.

2. The conversation often begins by going over the particulars of the working relationship between the reference and the candidate: the circumstances, the respective posts held at the time, the kinds of projects undertaken, the length and frequency of interaction during the working relationship.

The classic questions focus on:

- Strong Points – Weaknesses or Qualities – Faults
- Successes – Failures
- Behavior in a team, behavior with clients
- Management style
- Reaction under stress

But questions such as the following are also common:
- If you had to give advice to person X to help them develop their skills or improve in general, what would that advice be?
- What advice would you give to their future boss about the best way to fully utilize the talent and potential of said person X?
- Is it your impression that person X has what it takes to keep moving forward in his career?
- If I were to speak to your colleagues regarding person X, would they tell me the same things you did about this person? Who would differ and why?
- (After describing the job for which person X has applied) In your opinion, would person X make a good candidate? Are there aspects that would need monitoring, improvement?
And finally the typical question: Would you be willing to rehire them? The false notes, the tone of voice, the hesitations are all taken into account!

3. Certain recruiters have specialized firms perform background checks on candidates: university degrees, debts or criminal files. See for example : Info Cubic

To summarize, here are the key points:
- Has the candidate been truthful?
- Does the information gathered from different references match?
- Does the information gathered from the references confirm the impression formed during the conversations?

In this way, recruiters validate that they were not taken in by the candidate during the interview. Manipulative persons abound! This is necessary since they are putting their credibility and reputation on the line with regards to future employers.

III. How to prepare yourself

It is important to anticipate recruiters’ request for references even if you’re not currently looking for work (see: the difference between a loser and a winner!). You would therefore be well advised to make a list, right now, of all the people who might contribute a relevant perspective about your profile (more practical details on this in the next post).

If you’re currently looking for work, you can have your reference read this post in preparation of the coming conversation with recruiters! The goal should be to allow them to give answers with precision and authenticity.

If you know that one of your references will give negative feedback on certain aspects of your shared working relationship, it is better to preempt them by giving your version of the facts. In general, the more open you are with the recruiter, the more he will trust you.

It’s also possible that your reference will not be very positive in their assessment of you because they resent your leaving the organization. They can pay you back indirectly! It is thus helpful to describe for the recruiter the context of your departure.

If you lie on a single aspect of your resume, you undermine the credibility of the whole document. A lot of resumes are faked; candidates lie and so do their references. This is part of the way things are. This is not an effective way, however, to build one’s reputation for the long-term! Thanks to people search engines, Google, social networks and tools designed for the management of online reputation, the Internet will soon make it a lot easier to track fraudsters. If you’re among them, now is the time to act…

IV. Your references: an asset for tomorrow, today and always!

A lot of professionals face 2 major problems when it comes to their references: losing them and using them in crisis mode (when everything’s going wrong).

How do we lose our references?

References are at the core of your professional reputation. The more of them you have, the better. However, you regularly lose these references: loss of contact information, retirement,…

The rate at which you lose your references is commensurate with:
- your professional mobility (change of organization, roles,…)
- your geographical mobility (change of country, region,…)

How to best take advantage of your references starting now

Why call upon your references only when you’re seeking a job? Your references could help you get a promotion, a raise or even a new position!

Your references are at the core of what could be called your trust network. What are you doing to manage your trust network? Not much? Then you’ll definitely want to read the next post

This post benefited from contributions from the following: Guy Djandji – Béatrice Sevat (CRM Web Manager, DANONE group) – Alexandra Thusy – Jean-Michel Putto (president of GN, a consulting firm specializing in strategic development) – Valentine Baud & Florent Lafarge