Movement for change Make it easy for a former employer to provide a reference
I received a request from an employment agency in Canada to provide information on their background check of a former employee.

I was able to answer several questions in a reply to a form, embedded in the email. They were answers that I was able to give easily based on my knowledge of the former employee. I find the questions to be relevant.

My reply took less than 10 minutes as promised in their email.

I find their approach to be considerate and very good, compared to the troublesome method that is usually adopted by employment agencies in Singapore.

Here are the faults of the methods adopted in Singapore:

a) Difficult to open their encrypted questionnaire
b) Difficult to answer their questions which ask for detailed scores to issues that are hard to measure
c) Too many questions, many of which are irrelevant.

I tried to be helpful by giving references on former employees. After a few frustrating experiences, I now refuse to respond to any question for employment references that are stored in an encrypted form or adopt the "Singapore method".

Tan Kin Lian

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