Team TASS has just finished 2 huge recruitment drives for 2 large employers on the island. One of the most time consuming parts of the process was calling many of the applicants to talk through the referees or written references that had been provided as part of the application.Our clients generally want to see references that have come from your previous work places and usually from a direct supervisor. It is an added bonus to have a character reference from a upstanding member of the community but it shouldn’t replace a working professional reference.

We would recommend running by the following basic check list when applying for a role

Resume – Make sure it is up to date, your numbers work and your voicemail is not full!!!!

Cover letter – Make sure it is addressed to the correct person or to sir/madam. Also do not attach it to a blank email, copy and paste into the body of the email otherwise it can get over looked and your application is left looking like spam.

3 Professional References – We understand you may not want to put you current employer on here, that is understandable, but if you could provide the names of 2 professional contacts, preferably a direct manager with the 3rd coming from your current employer once an offer is received, that is acceptable. Many candidates also seem to miss out employers and will skip past the most recent 2 or 3, this raises many questions with employers and should be avoided if possible.

Should your move be sensitive, all references can be provided upon request rather than at the beginning or you can instruct the HR team not to contact until you have been notified. This is perfectly acceptable.

When a client or candidate uses an agency like CML Offshore Recruitment it does give you the added advantage that we will chase and clarify any missing information, but remember a direct application may be over looked because you haven’t covered the above points and you will never know that was the reason.