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Do you have any customers who could act as references? I'm not sure what you sell, but if you have a few people write statements that say 'MossBear sold me a ____ and they were very helpful. They always have a great attitude and are very knowledgeable about ______' or something like that.
References aren't the end-all-be-all, but if you've done a job and you want to prove you did it well, finding anyone who can act as a witness to how you did that job is useful. It doesn't have to be coworkers or a manager. Customers, suppliers, anyone: 'MossBear has been buying office supplies from me for ____ and they always pay their invoices on time.'
Yeah, I do have a lot of positive emails from customers over the years. If that wouldn't be weird, I could totally put that together.
As a person who has hired a lot of people, I think that's completely fine, and way better advice than the people who suggested that you make stuff up.
That's good to hear. I had one professional job before starting my own business and my boss from that job died several years ago, so my current and past customers is all I really have.
I've hired people who had their own business for a decade or more prior, so they didn't have fresh references. It's worrisome when someone's resume says they've worked for multiple companies in the last several years but they can't give you a reference, but lots of people can't for good reasons.
Also worth noting that many companies, including the one I work for, don't allow management to give references. Apparently some people have sued because they felt a poor or mediocre reference cost them a job, and some companies just don't want to take the risk when there's no benefit to them. So lots of companies are used to not being able to get references for one reason or another.
I think references are much more important when you're hiring a nanny or something like that, where a resume might not tell the story.
I'd put the dead boss as a reference. Even if they do try to call and find out what happened to him, they don't know that YOU already know that.