As a university lecturer, I get asked by quite a few students to act as a personal referee for them in applying for jobs, further study etc. It goes with the territory and I’m generally happy to do it. What I’m less happy with is the standard of the people asking for references. I’m getting really tired of receiving a reference request with questions like “What are they like dealing with co-workers?”; “How is their time-keeping?”; “Would you re-employ them (if company policy allows)?”. That is, references which assume that the referand was employed. Now, when the reference is for something like a temp agency, that’s a little more understandable, but when I get these things from regular graduate employers, it really ticks me off. I got another one like this today. I try to be polite, since I don’t want to mess up my students’ chances of getting a job, but I do get a little short in my notes pointing out that I could fill in the form, but it would consist of lots of N/As and would they like to send me an appropriate form or would they like a free-form reference as a letter.