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Remember everyone, if you ask someone to act as a reference for you, make sure they know your full name. Or at least the name you put on your application.
One of my friends from Halifax just applied for work at a call center. As we are such good friends, I agreed to serve as reference for him. This morning I get a call from a company telling me that Matthew Roswell* had put me down as a reference. I was really confused. I recognized the company calling, but my friend's name is Paul Rose*, we call him Rose. Anyway, I tell the caller this, and she confirms that I do not know a Mathew Roswell. After I get off the phone, I suddenly am struck with a weird feeling. Maybe, Matthew is Paul's first name. But that still doesn't explain the last name issue.
So I send him an e-mail asking him about this. In his response he tell me that the call center had already hired him, and told him they had called all his references. However, his full name is Matthew Paul Roswell. He prefers going by Paul, and people just started calling him Paul Rose. I know a few people who abbreviate their last name in casual circles, I wasn't really too surprised.|
I was really pissed, though. In nearly three years of friendship, never once did Rose correct me on his last name, or tell me he goes by his middle name instead of his first. How the heck can you expect someone to act as your reference if they don't even know what name you are going by?
Rose is a really great guy, and I hope that this incident doesn't cost him the job. But honestly, how was I suppose to know I didn't know his name?
*Names changed
One of my friends from Halifax just applied for work at a call center. As we are such good friends, I agreed to serve as reference for him. This morning I get a call from a company telling me that Matthew Roswell* had put me down as a reference. I was really confused. I recognized the company calling, but my friend's name is Paul Rose*, we call him Rose. Anyway, I tell the caller this, and she confirms that I do not know a Mathew Roswell. After I get off the phone, I suddenly am struck with a weird feeling. Maybe, Matthew is Paul's first name. But that still doesn't explain the last name issue.
So I send him an e-mail asking him about this. In his response he tell me that the call center had already hired him, and told him they had called all his references. However, his full name is Matthew Paul Roswell. He prefers going by Paul, and people just started calling him Paul Rose. I know a few people who abbreviate their last name in casual circles, I wasn't really too surprised.|
I was really pissed, though. In nearly three years of friendship, never once did Rose correct me on his last name, or tell me he goes by his middle name instead of his first. How the heck can you expect someone to act as your reference if they don't even know what name you are going by?
Rose is a really great guy, and I hope that this incident doesn't cost him the job. But honestly, how was I suppose to know I didn't know his name?
*Names changed
