How to manage multiple reference checks with few references

Question

I am looking for a job right now. After sending resumes in the last month or so, I got some answers, phone interviews, video interviews at different firms, amongst which 5 seem seriously interested in my profile.

We are at a point where those firms are asking for references, almost all at the same time.

I am quite young in my career, but I managed to collect about 4-5 good contacts which were superiors or project managers where I used to work (3 different places). I feel weird to put the same references over and over and I fear my contacts will be annoyed to be called multiple times for different jobs for me. I mean, they owe me nothing.

I know its a beautiful problem to have multiple job openings, but at the same time, I really don't want to bother my ex-coworkers or ex-bosses for something they are not a part of anymore, which is my career.

How do you manage this? How should I manage this?

Answer 1

I feel weird to put the same references

Don't worry about it, they all went through the same thing at the start of their careers. It's a two way street within an industry. You provide references for people and they rise in the industry and you never know where they may end up, so it's good policy to be nice.

I've followed the careers of people I have trained and wouldn't blink an eye if I answered 5 reference calls in a day.

Answer 2

Depending on how professional (and bored maybe) the recruiter is, a company recruiter will seldom actually contact a reference, unless your story looks too good to be true and will only contact a reference when you are being seriously considered. Calling references being work, like in time spent, costs etc., chances are none of your references will ever be called. Hence your fear of bothering ex-employers with an overload of it is... somewhat unrealistic.

Unless off course you tell them you invented the wheel for GoodYear or whatever. They will definitely make that call. Keep in mind there is such a thing as being overqualified. Sometimes tuning yourself down will get you a job, when all you need is a job, whilst singing the entire saga on yourself, truthful as it may be, won't