I went on vacation recently, doing something meaningful.  My wife and I joined in the Ride2Recovery Florida Challenge bicycling event.  www.ride2recovery.com

Ride 2 Recovery is produced by the Fitness Challenge Foundation, (501C3) in partnership with the Military and VA Volunteer Service Office, to benefit Mental and Physical Rehabilitation Programs for wounded warriors that feature bicycling as the core activity.  So far, my wife and I raised about $6,000 and rode the 390-mile bicycling event from Tampa to Jacksonville with veterans and many wounded warriors.  Each day for 6 days we all rode 50 – 80 miles.

These young men and women benefit both physically and mentally through this program.  Working with the VA hospitals, the Ride2Recovery progam provides stationary bikes, training for VA staff, street bikes [nice road bikes], helmets, shoes and apparel.  It also runs events like the Florida Challenge all over the country–Texas, California, Colorado, Virginia to name a few.

We witnessed first hand how this program is making an astounding difference in the lives of our warriors who have sacrificed so much for the rest of us.  We rode beside many multi-amputees [including Noah pictured below] who learned they could do things they wouldn’t have believed they could do as a whole-bodied person. 

We rode beside PTSD victims who find bicycling is a therapy which enables them to move forward in their lives and reconnect with their families and society.  Nick [a vet] and his son, Brandon, [pictured below] were reunited through this event and it was the motivating force that got Nick off the couch to get the help he needed to reclaim his life and his son.  And, there are so many PTSD victims coming from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Far more than the Pentagon predicted and planned for.

If you’ve managed to read this far, thanks.  The quid pro quo I have in mind is this: if you feel you have benefited from the advice offered in CareerWizard, give something back by donating to Ride2Recovery in my name. 

Credit Card:
Go to www.ride2recovery.com and click on “Sponsor a Rider”; then enter “David Hahn” and give whatever amount you can. 

Or, you can send a check to:
Fitness Challenge Foundation
23679 Calabasas Rd, #420
Calabasas CA 91302 [please enter "David Hahn" in the memo space on your check]

You will be helping a veteran who needs and deserves your help.  Your contribution is TAX DEDUCTABLE to you. Thanks!

It definitely pays to do some thinking and up-front work on this subject.  References may be requested at any point in the interview process, or they may not be requested at all.  But, when they are contacted, they can make a significant difference in your viability as a candidate.

So, who do you pick?  Well, first you should understand it is most common to be asked for business references, not personal references.  Usually, they ask for 3-5 people, but you probably want to select 6-8 people so you can choose the 3-5 that fit the situation the best.  I suggest you only offer the number of people they ask for.

Within the business category companies always want to hear from your former bosses.  After that they like to talk with subordinates and peers.  And, on rare occasion they want to talk with a customer / client–internal* or external.

But, now you have to pick the particular person from those categories.  Here are some attributes I look for in making the choice:

• Wants to help you,
• Experienced at reference check conversations, [1. won't get surprised into saying something which raises doubts about you, 2.  understands what employers look for when hiring, 3. will not wander off onto tangential subjects]
• Savvy about business, [can express why what you did, and how you did it, was important to the success of the business],
• Articulate, [expresses thoughts clearly and succinctly]
• Familiar with your work,
• Quick thinking, and
• Enthusiastic.

Notice I did not list “friend” as a criterion.  Having friends at work is great, and friends will certainly want to help and be enthusiastic, but it may end there.  Choose the person who best meets the criteria.

What if you are uncertain what a reference will say?  If you have a queasy feeling, pay attention to it! You might get some reassurance by asking the person what he or she would say.  You might walk away feeling better, or worse.  In any event, you always have the choice of not offering that person’s name as a reference.

The hiring company almost always asks to speak to your most recent boss.  However, if you are currently employed, the prospective employer will understand that your search is confidential and your ability to offer references is limited because of the risk of being fired.  However, they will still want to talk to references from previous employers.

But, if you are unemployed and you think it will be harmful for them to speak to your most recent boss, you may be able to persuade the employer otherwise.  Perhaps you worked for this boss only a very short time, or perhaps your direct-line supervisor [the bad one] worked at a different location and a local management person [dotted-line boss]  knows your work much better.  Find an acceptable reason and offer another reference who will serve their needs [and yours] better.

If a former boss, or other reference, is retired, that doesn’t make a difference to the prospective employer.  You may have to do some work to reconnect, but it’s worth it if it’s the right person for the task.

Do your homework and make your choices early in the search process.  You’ll have the right person ready to do the best job for you at the right time.  It can make all the difference.

* If you are not familiar with the term “internal customer,” this is a way of referring to the collection of people to whom you provide a service.  For example, a production engineer’s customers / clients may be production operations management.

Social networking websites are worth knowing about and using during job search: MySpace, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn are the main ones today.

All four are used by recruiters and employers today to find out about you; who you are, who you have in your circle, what grand or stupid things you’ve done in your life.  Of the four, only one, www.LinkedIn.com, has a business focus to it.  But all of them have their place in job search.

Facebook, Twitter and MySpace tend to be more about your social side; family, other people you know, things you like, things you do outside of work.  But, especially with younger adults, the interchanges also tend to encompass business issues and relationships in the overall mix of comments going back and forth, to and fro.  With regard to the job search process, employers make use of these sites more for background check purposes rather than the initial identification of job candidates.  They want indicators of whether you fit their definition of solid citizen or rogue; signs of whether you are a good fit with their culture or a square peg.

If you have an account on a social networking site, review the content thoroughly and make sure there is nothing embarrassing or damaging on there.  At the time it was posted, you and your friends may have seen it as funny, but recruiters and employers won’t share your sense of humor.  Job offers have been withdrawn based on what is on these sites.

Recruiters use LinkedIn much the same way, but they also mine this site to identify candidates to contact, and post jobs on this site too [they pay a fee for all this].  They are looking for information that you will have on your profile [much like a resume] and they will look at who your connections are and what recommendations you have received.

For your job search purposes, LinkedIn is an extremely valuable resource for interacting with your business network and expanding your network.  It is also a very powerful tool for finding job postings and learning information about companies.  If you are not making full use of LinkedIn during your job search, you are missing the boat!

LinkedIn is a free resource to you and it is very secure.  I’ve used it since 2003 and never had one problem with spam or any other abuse.  Once you register, the very next thing you should do is visit their Learning Center [look for the link at the bottom of every page in the navigation area].  At a minimum, view the Learning Center’s User Guides [left navigation bar] for: 1] New Users and 2] Job Seekers.

I’ve read research that indicates the largest single source of company hires is referrals from current employees and alumni.  LinkedIn is a critically important resource for you to  use in tapping into this special circle.  Go get linked in!

To-whom-it-may-concern letters handed out by job searchers are given little or no weight in the hiring process.  In fact, sometimes they are seen as a method used by employers to duck a reference check call and, perhaps, create concern there were unpleasant issues between you and your previous employer.  This is especially true with brief, vaguely worded reference letters.

Employers and recruiters strongly prefer the opportunity to talk directly to your references.  However, if you decide a reference letter is the thing to do, there is a better way.  Let’s say your former boss [peer, subordinate] has agreed to be a reference for you.  It’s not uncommon for you, the job searcher, to create the first draft of a letter of reference and offer it as a “thought starter” to the boss.  This takes work on your part, but enables you to present the topics important to you and suggest the emphasis you want.

Kudos

It should be no more than one page in length and it’s is a very nice touch for the boss to include an offer for the receiver to call and talk.  Just the offer itself suggests a real willingness to support you and implies there are more good things to say that didn’t make it into the letter.

 Such letters have maximum credibility when they are individually addressed to, and sent directly to, the interested party.  The body of the letter doesn’t have to be changed each time, just the address and the greeting.  To accomplish this, you must have the boss agree to send individual letters as requested by you.  You provide the name and address for the letter in each case.  Few will be required and it’s very little trouble with today’s word processing capabilities. 

A second-best approach is to send the boss a Thank-you-for-agreeing-to-be-a-reference letter and include in it some sentences you think the boss will find inviting to copy and paste into his or her own letter about you.

 Of course, today email is an optional format to use when sending letters of reference.  However, a well-crafted reference letter, personally signed and sent directly by smail, can make a very nice impression when time permits.

Have you ever experienced this?  You are in the midst an interview when the interviewer interrupts your answer because it has triggered a name and she asks, “Do you know [name]?”  If you do know the person, the conversation takes a brief tangent while you fill in the blanks about your newly-discovered connection.

At the same time, a very important event has just occurred.  A new person has been added to your reference list–whether you like it or not.  You have to assume the interviewer will reach out to your mutual acquaintance and get the scoop on you.

Immediately after leaving the interview call and ask for the help of your new reference.  Let him or her know to expect a call; give some background about the job and any special subjects to be addressed.  Then, send your resume as soon as you get access to a computer.  If you do this, your reference will be well prepared to handle the inquiry in a smooth, positive manner.