A reader writes:
I was on the job hunt about two and some years ago and got approval from certain teammates to act as references. I got a job (hooray) but now I’m starting to look again and I’m being asked for references. The thing is that I haven’t been in touch with these coworkers since I left — we’re on LinkedIn but have not really spoken. Just fell out of touch when you don’t have meetings and projects keeping you together.
Does their consent to serving as a reference persist or do I have to ask them again? I have one reference from my current job but this prior reference is helpful to have because it’s from a cross-team collaborator and it’s helpful to have someone other than your own immediate teammates vouching for you.
My instinct is that the consent lasts for one job search and I’d need to ask again for new ones. If that’s the case, do I need to do a song and dance or can I just ask? Politely, of course.
You need to ask them again. It’s less about their consent potentially having changed and more about alerting them that they might be getting called so they’re not taken off-guard (and so they can refresh their memories about what they might want to say). If you don’t alert them ahead of time, you risk them not returning messages or answering the call without any prep and sounding surprised or confused.
You do not need to do a song and dance; you can just ask. It’s very, very normal for colleagues to fall out of touch but then pop back up for references or networking or so forth. It’s not a faux pas the way it would be in a social context, like if you didn’t talk to someone for two years and then asked them to help you move. It’s perfectly routine in a business context!
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