If your reference changed jobs, what should be the job title?

Question

When listing references in your CV/resume, if one of them changed jobs recently (within same organization or to another organization), should you use their former title (through which you got acquainted with them) or current title?

To be more specific, I'd like to list one of my lecturers as a reference. However, he recently left my university and took a non-lecturing job at another organization. However, I know him only within the context of my university. So, I feel listing his new title would be misleading since that'd imply I got to know him through his current position making him an industry reference.

Answer 1

You probably want to list both:

• Their current role, so your (hopefully) future employer can contact them.
• Their role when you knew them, so your future employer knows what this reference is likely to be about.

I'd suggest something like:

Prof. V. Clever
Senior Manager
Big Corporation
vclever@bigcorp.com

Professor Clever lectured me for a number of courses while he was Professor of Gadgets at Acme Looniversity.

Answer 2

The cover letter/CV/resume shouldn't include the contact information for your references.

They don't want their contact info posted all over the internet.

If a company wants to contact your references they will ask for the list, their contact info and the relationship to you. That is the time you should provide these caveats regarding former and current positions and titles.

In the hiring process many will submit resumes but only a few will have their references checked. This is due to the fact that most resumes never even trigger an interview.

Answer 3

I do not list titles. When I supply references (which I do separately from my CV) I give a name, their relationship to me (e.g. lecturer at Acme U. from 2015-2018) and a work email address.

Their current or former job title is neither here nor there.