Job Discussion Forums

[pooroldedgar]

The school I'm applying at has asked me to provide the names and contact info for 4 references. If they contact as school I worked at for one year, will that count as a year of previous employment towards my salary? Or are employment letters entirely independent from references?

Also, how official should they be. One of the references I listed told me he received an email from he school asking about my performance. Can he simply email them back with his opinion on me and that is enough? That seems like it could leave room for shenanigan's, but i don't know what else to tell him to do.

[sicklyman]

although I was asked for a number of references, I was never asked to provide proof of employment. Prior to Saudi, I'd never heard of employment letters and didn't need any to land a job contracted to Aramco.

Generally, I don't advise prospective employees to get involved in the employer <-> referee process at all. Let them at it. If they've emailed him, then that's obviously an okay format for them to receive comments on your performance.

Just make sure he uses one of those funky oh-so-90s style stationery backgrounds in Outlook for his response. It's not the content that counts here but how it's packaged

[MuscatGary]

References say how good, or bad, you were at your job. How much sick leave, if you're suitable for certain types of work, etc. Certificates of experience just say where you worked and for how long. The latter often determine your pay scale. Some places may ask for certificates of experience to be attested and apostilled as well.

[murray1978]

I usually get a letter of recommendation/employment from each place that I worked. I noticed that in Saudi Arabia, they don't contact them but use it to assess your salary.

My letters are pretty professional. I have it on official letterhead, date of when it was written and a brief summary of my experience at said job.

In the first paragraph, I have my job title, dates worked (month/year) and student level/age.

The second paragraph mentions my highlights at said job and the last one is contact info.

Luckily for me, I can contact my references every year or two and update it so it is still relevant. All of my previous experience was in South Korea.

When I was interviewing for my current job, they wanted to talk to two people who can reference me and I guess it was a thirty minute conversation.

I hope this helps and good luck!

Murray

[veiledsentiments]

A letter of employment rarely contains any paragraphs. Just the facts. Basically just dates, salary, duties. These are the forms used by employers in the Gulf to set experience and salary.

Letters of Recommendation should be longer and detailed from an ex-employer/supervisor as to what you did and how you did it. It may or may not include all the information from above. None of my recommendation letters mentioned salary, for instance. And I had letters from more than one person at some places because I taught in two departments. They are not considered for setting experience level and salary.

I made sure that I got both of these from each ex-employer because every other employer in the Gulf (university level) required them.

VS