Reference Checks

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References for Small Companies

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The Reference Process

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The difference is that in this section we will talk about small businesses which do not keep proper records or are out of business, and situations where the client has been self-employed. These situations are a bit different than when a larger company is defunct.

The same techniques are used as for larger companies but with modifications to take into account the smaller nature of the business whether it still exists or not. If the business still exists, but has a large employee turnover and nobody there knows the client or is not able to provide a reference, then we will contact the owner. Often the owner is not reguarly present. Many small businesses have absent owners. Usually they will not give out the owner's personal telephone number. A potential employer is not going to wait and wait to be contacted or make repeated calls back. The reference may or may not be forthcoming, but it often takes too long to do any good. If a client is applying for a number of jobs, chances are the owner cannot be bothered to reply to all these reference requests, assuming the workers at the small business answering the telephones even bother to forward the messages to him/her.

In the above situation we will collect the reference data. We can then handle the reference inquiries. The information we provide will be true and correct. It just will be coming from a service bureau rather than the small business owner.

Big, medium and small companies outsource customer service, billing, information technology, payroll preparation, and so forth. What we do is not much different than what a credit reporting agency does, which is to collect information, aggregate it all together and then sell it to their subscribers, which includes the companies and other sources where they got it in the first place. Normally reference information comes from the employer, but if it is accurate, does it really have to come from the original source each and every time it is requested? No it doesn't. There is no law, no rule that it has to. People make a lot of assumptions about things, which simply are not true. There is no fraud or misrepresentation. If a reference caller asks us detailed information, we will answer their questions truthfully.

Indeed, small business owners who don't want to be bothered with giving out job references can sign up for Blue Planet's services, provide us with the information and use us to provide it to callers. Why be bothered with storing this information and handling calls when we can do it for you for a very reasonable fee. If you are a business without a personnel/human resources department, Blue Planet can be your HR department for you. We can also check the references of applicants to your business.

Self-Employed & Business Owners
The situation is different when the client is the owner or boss and is essentially providing the reference about himself by himself. Who else is going to provide the reference? This is one of the big problems of owning a small business or being self-employed and then going out afterwards to find a new job. What are you going to do, answer the reference call yourself? Ask a friend to do it? Gee, how well do you think that is going to go over?

Another bad thing about that situation is putting down on your resume/application that you were the president or owner. Who is the potential new employer going to call? An underling of your business? LIke they are going to believe anything that person tells them. If months or years have gone by, it is not likely any former employee is going to want to be bothered.

Although I have done it myself, in retrospect, putting down on the resume that I was the president or vice president of a business was a mistake. First, the employer was not going to hire me in that position or anything like it. It just probably made them think I would be bad at taking orders or instructions. Who knows what assumptions they made, but those assumptions denied me job offers I am certain. It would have been far smarter to indicate my position was just as a regular or perhaps mid-level employee. Running a small business, especially technology businesses as I did, there were many different types of tasks that I accomplished. I should have limited myself to the most relevant tasks to the job I was applying for.

The thing is, I still would not have had a means to have the reference verified. This applies to most people running a small business or being in a senior position in a business that is gone.

Blue Planet Offices can help you in these situations as well. Although we must rely on information from the client him or herself, we conduct an extensive investigation so that we can be confident and certain that we are providing accurate information. In these cases, most reference information will be standard, with nothing subjective about the employment. Enhanced references are generally not available in these situations.

Due to the additional time these reference investigations require, the fee is by necessity higher. The fee for these types of reference research and investigation is $139.95. Our definition of small business is a business that had less than 100 employees, or a business that has a single owner or is a partnership. Corporations that have less than 500 stockholders are small businesses. Businesses that do less than ten million a year in gross business sales are small companies. Some readers might think 10 million is a pretty good size business and indeed it is, but for our purposes it is not. Consider that a company needs to probably generate $200,000 per employee and thus a $10 million dollar business can be run with 50 people. If you reduce income to $100,000 per employee, that makes this a company with 100 employees. Companies with 100 employees can and do disappear without a trace. It takes time consuming and sophisticated effort to track down the details and it takes access to commercial databases we must pay to utilize.

When someone is unemployed, $89 or $139 may seem like a lot of money. In reality it is not. It is probably one days pay in the job that we are helping you to get. Our services are very reasonably priced and when you look at the value of our services to your future, our fees are extremely low. Your reference calls are handled by a live trained operator in our Florida call centers. Plus, we have invented this industry and nobody else even offers the services we do.

Small Business Investigated Reference -- $139.95

Small Business Investigated Reference- Additional Months $49.95

Temporarily payment is made to dschramm, Blue Planet CEO. Our service is billed as a subscription for one month. Your service will be completed within that time. You will only be billed once.