Question: In my department, we are finding that the largest problem in evaluating candidates for new appointments, promotion, or tenure is in their letters of reference, which often fail to address ...

How does a job seeker help strengthen his or her credentials as a person of substance? When recruiters put the credentials of candidates side by side, they consider many reasons to hire or not to hire ...

Reference letters come in many different shapes and forms, so don’t think that one size fits all. I’ve written in the past about how to request reference letters in different situations, be it from ...

The "references" section of a job application is often skimmed over by job seekers who are eager to relay the finer details of their past job descriptions. But recent research shows applicants shouldn ...

Whether you are signing up a huge supplier, hiring an employee or thinking of making an investment, reference calls are absolutely crucial. Before I learned how to do them properly, they were purely ...

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. My old university tutor often complains when he has to write references – they take up a lot of his time, and ...

Between the interview and the job offer come the reference and background check. Background checks are easy enough. You just need to verify that the person has the degrees he or she claims to have, ...

Q: After an investigation, we fired one of our employees for threatening and stalking two co-workers. He's now demanding a positive letter of reference, which I'm writing. I earlier tried to appease ...

This reader thought he had a strong reference lined up for his last job, but his boss went MIA. Should he push to get that reference, or is it better to focus his time elsewhere? In my final meeting ...

The Wicked: For Good promo cycle is well underway. Cynthia Erivo (Elphaba), Ariana Grande (Glinda), Jonathan Bailey (Fiyero), Michelle Yeoh (Madame Morrible), and Jeff Goldblum (the Wizard) have ...

Q. In the “How to Deal with Rejection” career chat a few weeks ago, someone at Poynter noted the importance of having strong references and talking to your references about what they would say about ...