- 2024
- Mar
- 29
No amount of whining will get you that information.
I may be alone here, but I’ve always found being asked for my “last three manager’s names, phone numbers, and email addresses” to be kind of odd. They don’t have time to be pestered by your questions, and what are you going to ask them? I can show you a W-2 to prove I worked there.
Beyond that, I don’t have contact with any of those people. It’s been too long for most of them, some of us parted ways long before places like LinkedIn were even a thing. That answer would usually satisfy most callers, especially when I pointed out they were asking for information from 1995. Do you remember your manager from 1995? Sure, I remember the guy’s name, but where is he - I have no idea.
One caller decided to be a little b**** and snippily asked me “Why don’t you want to give me these names?” Well, I just told you that I don’t have contact with them. “Well, I still need their contact information to proceed.”
Ok, sure. If you want to go nuclear, I have some nukes as well.
“You recently moved to a new job…”
“Yes, company was bought out. Technically, I still work there.”
“Uhhhhhhh, ok…how about the job before that?”
“My last manager was Bobby Blankspace.”
“Ok, well how do I get hold of him?”
“He’s dead. Heart attack after his wife left him.”
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawkward.
“Well…how about at this job?”
“That was 20 years ago. That company doesn’t exist now. It was old and tired when I was there and most of the people were retirement age. If they’re still alive, I doubt they would do more than tell you where to go and quit bothering them because if I were retired and 85 that’s what I’d tell you. I used to have contact with one of my former supervisors, but he was fired for cocaine use and I lost track of him.”
Double Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawkward.
“And before you go on to the next one, that was even farther back. I lost track of that person in 1995 when I left. The division closed and he followed what was left to Tennessee. He’s probably long since retired by now, and would be in his 80s if he’s still alive.”
…
“In fact, the only job I can reliably give you a contact for is the one where I was a freelancer, and my boss was me.”
…
…
…
The person was still snippy but shuffled me off the phone as quick as they could when it became apparent I couldn’t play their game.
I don’t want to be impolite, but when I tell you I don’t have any contact information for these people, and they probably won’t talk to you anyway - I’m not being nasty. It’s just the way it is when you’ve been doing this for 30 years.
The age of some of the callers made me think that, as they had grown up in a world where social media always existed, it’s completely alien to them that you wouldn’t have all of these people in various contact circles - not quite realizing that some of us were working before your parents graduated high school.
More likely?
Contacts of potential hiring managers mean more people you can market to.
That’s all. You’ll get names when we’re moving forward, not on a cold call where you just want to chat.