Yes, it is routine and expected to ask references in advance, before they are contacted. Mostly so that their initial response is not, "Dave who?"
I once answered the phone at my step-mother's house and the man on the other end asked, "Do you know Phi/lip M/in?" And I said no, since I didn't. It turned out to be someone from the State Department calling my step-mother as part of a background check for this person. But did he say that up front? No. He just asked me if I knew Phi/lip M/in.
And to tell your references what the job is, and how you're trying to present yourself. So that they know what will further your presentation and what won't, and whether they'll feel comfortable saying it, and so they'll have actually thought about it.
Which I guess, is what ac meant by so that their initial response is not, "Dave who?
only at unfogged is a love question stated as "Solve for X"
The person in 2 gave a lot more information than the usual person looking to stay anonymous. I think he wants to be found out and the whole point of his letter was to indirectly announce that he was getting laid.
I didn't know I would be giving references until they asked for them. While I am no longer in touch with Wiggles, I can be reasonably certain that he didn't say "Dave who?"
I did let him know afterwards that they would be sending him something in the mail, and he didn't seem to mind. But I didn't think to ask if he thought he could be helpful.
It also didn't turn out to matter. They are desparate for male volunteers and they found a match the next day. Anyway, thanks for the advice.
Hmm. Well, the other part of my advice is that it's best to be very cautious when evaluating someone's report of another person's words. Some guy could just lazily say "chew you out" when he didn't mean that at all, as it appears was the case.
Hm. Overthinking, Oakland, what other prominent lurker's name starts with "O"?
Overthinking in Oakland needs to figure out whether there's even a vague chance he or she will want to try for a long-distance relationship. If not, or tending not, then it's so much better to be honest from the get-go, so that the other person can relax and have a good time without ideas about the Future. Actually, that probally holds true if there's to be a chance of a long-distance relationship too.
I also totally disagree that X should be a value of months, unless OO goes on a date a month. Shouldn't X be number of dates or sexual encounters? And in that case, I'd say by date 5 or so.
I think X is "how long will I be in town," not "when should I tell him/her."
9 -- I think you are misreading -verthinking in -akland's query. He didn't ask "How long should I wait before telling her?" -- he wants to know "How far in the future does my move need to be before I don't have to bother telling her at all?"
Which is a kind of weird question in a way. B/c if they do get involved, then at some point his move is no longer going to be X in the future, so he will need to tell her, and at that point it will accurately seem like he's been holding out on her, and cause hurt feelings.
And making unwarranted gender assumptions too boot!
8: The really scary thing is how long it took for me to come up with the obvious.
Which is a kind of weird question in a way. B/c if they do get involved, then at some point his move is no longer going to be X in the future, so he will need to tell her, and at that point it will accurately seem like he's been holding out on her, and cause hurt feelings.
Exactly, which is why Tia is right. If it's near, you tell because it's important. If it isn't near, you tell because it isn't important, and actively concealing unimportant stuff is psycho. If it's important enough to worry about revealing, that means that you reveal.
1. What ac said. A friend of mine is going through a mess trying to get a security clearance because one of his college buddies said 'Oh, I think he supports the IRA' to a federal investigator. (N.B.: don't have your college buddies be stupid, either.)
Try to warn the referees, and you can do this before the specifc job by establishing that this is a person you might ask a reference from.
2) No hard and fast rule. At some point you're going to have a conversation about your plans, and when it comes up, it comes up. Plus, there's a huge assumption that the other person will be heartbroken and feel used AND won't want a long distance relationship, which are a lot of assumptions that seem to make you a lot more important in his/her life than you probably are.
10 and 11: oh. Okay, ignore my comment.
You know, I've recommended students for camp councilor type jobs and said just what it looks like Prof. Wiggles actually said, “I can’t speak to this person’s ability to work with at risk children, because it has nothing to do with the courses I teach.” I didn’t think I was chewing anyone out. I was just a neutral fact.
Was I wrong? In the hyper inflated language of recommendations, was I supposed to say, “On the basis of this person’s brilliant essays on Mill’s harm principle, I can say that they will be great with kids.”
Recommendation-language is so weird. I think you're supposed to speak to their sense of responsibility, the assiduousness of their intelligence, their ability to mentor other students, blah-tiddy-blah-blah.
And everyone you've ever taught is in the top 5% of the students you've taught.
So once I opened a letter of recommendation, and it said I was in the top 10 students he'd had in 30 years of teaching. It made me feel all proud and stuff. Was that all a big lie?
I think you're supposed to speak to their sense of responsibility, the assiduousness of their intelligence, their ability to mentor other students, blah-tiddy-blah-blah.
I did all that stuff. I just said that I never saw them work with children.
I know he thought highly of me though! He sometimes took notes when I spoke.
Damn.
He sometimes took notes when I spoke.
"OMG she is hott."
24 -- couldn't he just have been making bored doodles?
I once opened a recommendation later (from when I was initially applying for grad school) and it said similar things. I suspect there is a certain amount of repetition in these things.
On the other hand, it also said some pretty specific things about me that were i) nice and ii) not sufficiently general to be generic 'reference' statements.
So I assume there's a certain degree of writing to formula and a certain degree of specific stuff that goes into these letters.
I swear, once we were talking about The Pearl, and he made a point of repeating what I said and writing it down.
When I was the student member of a hiring committee at my uni, the boilerplate options for the last paragraph went like this:
I recommend this candidate...There's probably an even more hyperbolic formulation available, but I can't/won't come up with it.
I highly recommend this candidate...
I enthusiastically recommend this candidate...
I enthusiastically and without reservations recommend this candidate...
I enthusiastically and without reservations recommend this candidate and urge you to contact me if you have any questions...
After reading 100 dossiers, I started assuming that if the professor wrote one of the first two--even three--versions, there was something wrong with the candidate, that the recommendation was not enthusiastic enough.
I, obviously, am Cranky. Therefore, 6 was to my own 5, not my being an ass.
only at unfogged
This phrase gives me gout, and is therefore DEPRECATED.
I just pretty much ignored the recommendation letters. If one said "X is the best person ever to come out of this program, really I mean it trust me" that got some weight, but I figured a lot of the difference among those other formulations is with the recommender, not the candidate. (And I get really nervous writing letters, because I fear the person reading it may not be using the same decoder ring.)
Seconded. Along with any extensive conversation about the astonishingly high caliber of cleverness, wit, and erudition among the commenters and posters here. Self-congratulation excerbates my corns.
Only at Unfogged could our comments have such impact they actually give a poster foot pain. God, we're good.
This candidate is 1337. Give her j0bZZ0Rz, d00dz.
33.-- Actually, everything I learned about the hiring process made it very clear that everything that I learned about the hiring process was wrong. All the parameters our committee set were eventually declared moot, and everything I thought was supposed to be important turned out not to be. I have no idea whether that's a function of my department and university, but it was sure depressing. (We managed to hire good people, somehow, but it's kinda grim to reflect on all those potentially good people who got screened out because of those standards that we later ended up abandoning.)
Self-congratulatory statements first made my corns hurt on dial-up BBS forums.
It's interesting that O seems to be phrasing the entire problem in terms of "what would be fair to the person I'm dating" and completely not considering the possibility that, if the relationship gets really serious, he might actually take that into account two years down the line when he's thinking about where to live.
In other words, for god's sake, stop fussing about it, talk about it when it comes up, deal with whatever response you get (which may well be no response at all), and stop trying to second-guess and control the other person's feelings. Just be honest about your own.
Self-congratulatory statements made over shortwave radio are what first set Farber down the path he's taken.
O
Let's not make unfounded assumptions, people.
Farber had gout first.
That joke was implicit in 32.
That's a fine line for you to take.
4: I think he wants to be found out and the whole point of his letter was to indirectly announce that he was getting laid.
+
8: Overthinking, Oakland, what other prominent lurker's name starts with "O"?
=!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That's a fine line for you to take.
Why do you say that, exactly?