Need Help from Hiring Managers

And how badly do they want you?

Yes, if I were reviewing references I would want at least one former supervisor. Can you track them down? I always called my references before they were called, to brief them on what the job was and what they might want to emphasize. You will probably get a more honest reference from someone who is retired. Officially at my current employer I am not allowed to give a reference - only refer you to HR where they will confirm dates of employment, job titles and salaries.

I've never seen a situation where they ask for date of birth before you have signed a letter of offer.

Did your old college just close up, or did it amalgamate. If the latter is the case, they still might be able to provide a transcript.

I would not leave your bachelors off the resume - not every employer will be stupid like this.

If they are this stupid with your hiring - do you really want to work for them?

James

I was always taught to look for the gaps of information in a resume.

For example, if the prospect lists three companies down their previous employers, I would try to find which of those had NOT been provided a contact or phone number.

And we were always taught to call the company as well as the individual referee. You'd be surprised that nearly all companies happily blast out information about an ex-employee, just simply by being asked.

They open themselves to a huge risk in doing so but they still do.

And calling someone "out of the blue" seems to be a lot more revealing than speaking to their supplied referees.

I mean seriously - if I get told one more time (when I speak to personal referees) that the biggest area of potential improvement is to get the prospective employee "not to do too much work" or "not to take on too many tasks" - like, hello????

But how to handle your issues?

I think you may be suffereing a forest v. trees issue. Each of these problems can be reasonably easily solved but take some work and effort to sort out.

Think about it like this - rather than think about the job, tell yourself that if you can get this information quickly you'll win the lottery and trillions of bucks.

Now do you have any new ideas?

So with the "old boss" issue - is he/she physically impossible to trace? Do you not have an ex-colleague, who knows someone, who in turn knows someone else, and that person had dinner with some other guy, and that last guy has your ex-boss's email address or phone number? Surely a few phone calls will sort this out.

Alternately can't you get another name of someone in the company who will validate your reference? From what you say about your references there must be someone else who'll attest that you're a pretty good find.

The degree . . .

The fact that the degree isn't a requirement for the job is now completely irrelevant.

What is now relevant is making sure that the information you readily provided can be verified.

With the degree issue surely there is more detail you can provide - college amalgamation, your own copies of your transcript as opposed to the bit of paper itself, old student ID cards, alma mater? Is there no-one - an old college friend - you are still in contact with who may be able to sign an affedavit (do you have them in the USA?) confirming that the college really did exist and you all went to it?

Is there zero record of the name of the college in Google or Yahoo? What about the Library of Congress or something?

There has to be a record somewhere and it can't take too much to find it.

Once you can verify that, it would seem to me that you are on easy street and should get the job.

Hey the birth date is a real tough one. I'd be very wary about that. You have given it now so again it exists and will probably be used.

I would have pointed out that if they needed to verify something with my birth date that can only be done once they have made me a job offer - the offer could be conditional upon the verification / validation and (as I understand it) that is reasonably legal. So they offer, you give birthday, they validate, you start work. Very simple.

{hey if your cousin is a lawyer and so you don't have expensive legal fees then this could be a real bonus fom heaven if you don't get the job }.

The colleges I've attended over the past 20 years are accredited though various US regions. If you go to the state where you graduated from college, research the colleges still standing. Find out about who accredits them. Contact that accrediting agency and ask them to assist you with "proving" your degree.

I'd suggest you find another reference besides that supervisor. Unless you're willing to "google" him and contact him personally to ask for his contact information for a reference, you might need to find someone else.

He can still verify your employement at the old firm and give you a good reference, but honestly that firm's HR department is suppose to verify your employment dates and salary. That's all they're supposed to do, but we know sometimes they say more than they should.

I ran into these same problems, so I wish you good luck.

An employer does not have the right to ask for your date of birth prior to offering you a position. This is supposed to prevent age discrimination. Next time ask them why they want it.

I too have a degree from a college that no longer exists; it was a technical degree but I got a Bachelors and then a Masters so employers verify those two. You should have a copy of your degree that you could bring in to show them. I have transcripts from all three colleges that I graduated from. Keep it on your resume and find a way to verify it.

I also had difficulty getting a position when the last three companies I worked for were no longer in business - therefore no way to verify employment. The people who finally hired me just went back farther in the past until they had verified 3 places of employment. Your supervisor shouldn't matter, HR for that company (if they are still in business) should be able to verify your employment.

I keep up with people I use as a reference on a personal level so if they retire or change companies I can still contact them. I also try to get new references as I move along. I always have 1 supervisor, 1 peer and 1 person who reported to me.

As a hiring manager I never call a person's references because I think they are a waste of time. In these days when we are instructed to give only the bare minimum of information to avoid lawsuits, i.e. dates of employment and job title, there's no relevance to what a reference will say. I find out in the interview if the person has the experience and the knowledge for the position. HR checks on employment and colleges. I check on colleges and employment if I need a way to weed through hundreds or thousands of resumes.

To find old collge records of colleges no longer in business, some states store old graduation recordsin there archives. The State of Maine as an example has an office you can write to to get transcripts from for a minimal cost.