[bigiain]

It's always worth considering whether you have people who will give you genuine glowing references.

I've only ever once been at a place where there was a policy saying "all you are allowed to say during reference checks is "yes, they worked here as [job title], from {month/year} to {month/year}". And even with that policy/restriction I still found ways to be much much more positive about the people who were genuinely great.

One great way around that kind of policy - at least if you far enough into your career for it - is to provided references for people who are also no longer at the company they're being a referee for. There are 3 or 4 people from that job I mentioned that didn't allow me to elaborate, where I've subsequently provided reference including something like "Ratica? Yeah - she is great! She lead my QA team and worked magic! You might want to warn the company she's applying to that as soon as I get a role and budget that suits her QA skills, I'll 100% be trying to headhunt her away from them."

[skypivot]

Congratulations, you cost her the job because the company didn't want to deal with an increased risk of her being poached. She's suing, by the way.

[bigiain]

Nah, she got the job. And that lead to her next even better one. Now I'd need something to go spectacularly right for me to be able to afford to head hunt her.

(We still catch up for coffee every 6 or 12 months.)