Job reference: rights and wording - this is important

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Stilted language, strange formulations, almost exaggerated praise: Those who read job references are often surprised.

Instead of grades, they contain formulations from which you have to laboriously read out whether you really were the employee of the year - or the exact opposite.

No wonder that employees and employers have problems with this.

It's not that difficult at all.

Every employee is entitled to a job reference when they leave a company.

This is what it says in Section 109 of the Trade Regulations.

There are two types: The simple certificate only contains information about who worked for how long and where, and thus says little.

Standard is the qualified certificate in which performance and behavior are assessed.

This certificate should be given on the last working day.

Job reference formulations: This means the reference language

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The employer evaluates the employee with certain formulations in the job reference.

But sounding good and meaning well are two different things in reference language.

The testimony

must be true

and it must be benevolently written.

“It can be a tightrope walk,” says Britta Clausen from the Bremen Chamber of Employees.

So if an employer wants to give his employee a bad report, he must either deviate from the standard structure or package the criticism in nice words.

As a rule, it is always structured in the same way: After the information about when to when the employee worked there and in which

position

, a brief description of the

company

and the

tasks

follows

.

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Then comes the assessment of the

performance

, the

willingness

to

work

and the

ability

to

work

.

This is followed by a summary.

“That is the key phrase,” says Clausen.

This also includes the

overall

rating: "His performance was always to our complete satisfaction", for example, corresponds to the rating "One".

The certificate ends with an assessment of the

behavior

and concludes with

thanks

and good

wishes

.

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You can find all tips on formulations in the job reference here:

Interim certificate: why request, when to speak?

In order to know where you stand, you don't have to wait for your job reference, you can also ask for an interim reference.

You are also entitled to this if you can

cite

a

“legitimate interest”

.

This includes, for example, if the supervisor leaves his position or you change to another position.

A legitimate interest also exists when the order situation is poor and redundancies can be expected.

Sometimes other reasons are specified in the employment or collective agreement.

The interim reference has an advantage: When you leave the company, the job reference must

not deviate too much from it

.

Formally, the interim reference differs from the job reference only in what it cannot contain, such as the date on which the employment ends or good wishes for the future.

It must be written

in the present tense

.

If possible, it should also state why you got it, for example because you switched to another department.

However, asking for an interim reference can be tricky.

It may signal to the boss that you want to leave the company.

Employee advisor Clausen recommends

asking for an interim reference

in a

personal interview

.

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You can find all tips on the interim certificate here:

Do not write your job reference yourself

Clausen advises against writing the job reference yourself.

You have to

learn and be able to apply

the

testimony

rules, otherwise you will accidentally give yourself a bad testimony.

The difficulty is also in

evaluating yourself

.

What are your own strengths?

What was the greatest achievement?

It is up to the boss to judge that, and you have to ask yourself whether you want to do this work for him.

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However, a little legwork can be helpful.

If the boss specifically asks, you can

put together

your

own activities and successes

in key words

.

If he seldom writes certificates and is not familiar with the standards, he may even be happy if you add a

clear list of

formulations and ratings.

A study by the Jena University of Applied Sciences three years ago showed that around 50 percent of all certificate writers have not received any training.

In smaller companies it is even 80 percent.

Even so, most employees are satisfied in the end.

You can find all the tips on "Writing your own reference work" here:

Bad Job Reference: How To Challenge It

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“Disputes are usually about individual formulations,” says Dr.

Nathalie Oberthür, specialist lawyer for labor law and social law and chairwoman of the labor law committee at the German Bar Association.

The references are wordlessly worded or the employer didn't know any better.

In such cases, you should

first

inform the employer

in writing

.

The best way to do this is to write that the testimony does not meet the requirements and ask him to rephrase it.

You can send a suggestion for the relevant positions.

Whether or not he takes on this remains a matter of course.

"You have

no right

to very specific formulations," says Christian Götz, lawyer in the legal department of the Ver.di union.

Very few employers want a court hearing to come down to it.

There is a good reason for that.

"The chances of success are not particularly high from a legal point of view," says lawyer Oberthür.

"The problem is the burden of proof."

There are no legal deadlines within which one has to contest one's certificate, but the "principle of forfeiture" applies, explains Oberthür.

For the employee, this means that he

should complain to his former employer

within six to nine months

.

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After that, there is little chance of being successful with a lawsuit.

Sometimes the employment contract also contains a wording stating the period after which all obligations are settled.

So anyone who has received a bad job reference should seek help quickly.

You can find all the tips on "contesting your job reference" here:

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This article was first published in September 2019.