1. This requirement motivates the wrong behavior.

   When I agree to act as a personal or professional reference for someone else, and you, as their potential employer, contact me, I will tell you in no uncertain terms that I will not speak to you unless the person for whom I have agreed to act as a personal or professional reference first provides me with your name and contact information so that I am able to confirm you are who you say you are. To do otherwise motivates the wrong behavior and invites certain kinds of social engineering, such as pre-texting. In my opinion, this is a far better personal practice than to discover, after the fact, that I have inadvertantly disclosed or confirmed someone else's non-public information for illegitimate uses, despite my good intentions.

2. Such a request requires me to accept risk on behalf of someone who is not party to our agreement to take reasonable steps to maintain my privacy.

   When I apply for a job, I disclose certain information about myself, such as my employment history and educational background. I expect you, as a potential employer, to take reasonable steps to maintain the confidentiality of that information and my privacy. I accept the risk that the information I disclose about myself may be abused or mis-used.

   However you, as a potential employer, have not agreed to take reasonable steps to maintain the privacy of the person or persons acting as a personal or professional reference on my behalf. You are asking me to submit a reference's telephone number or email address without agreement that you will not abuse or mis-use the information I disclose about them to you.

   As a result, you are placing the onus on me to assess, and accept, the risk of disclosure, even though I will not be the one paying the price if you abuse or mis-use the information or are unable to properly secure data. This is a risk I am unwilling to accept on their behalf.

I provide personal or professional references on request if I am able to give the person agreeing to act as a reference the name of the person checking references and contact information such as the telephone number from which the person checking references will be calling or the email address from which they will be sending mail. I then ask the reference to provide the telephone number or email address at which they would like to be contacted, and provide that information to the person checking references.

This is a personal practice developed over several years and one which I consider to be perfectly reasonable. In general, companies actively seek employees with high standards of personal and professional integrity. Some of the companies to which I have submitted a resume or job application will not even review my application because it is not "complete" and therefore easy to discard.

It is with no small measure of irony that I note completing an application for those companies would require me to violate my own standards of personal and professional integrity, so perhaps it is for the best.