Interim Employment Reference: Example

How to formulate an individual and visualizing (Interim) Employment Reference.

How we work:

The assessment sheet – filled in by the supervisor – and the individual comments included (and which we highly recommend the supervisor take the opportunity to provide) form an idea, a picture.

 

We describe this picture of the employee in his daily work, within the frame of the criterion to be evaluated, by means of the ticked-off, characteristic attributes.

By way of example, we will concentrate here on two real Interim Employment References from our daily work routine and confine ourselves to the criterions of “Willingness to Work” and “Ability to Work”.

 

We copied the corresponding assessment sheets in parts and will exemplify the relevant paragraphs in the Interim Employment Reference.

1. Example: Creation due to parental leave

A medical sales representative in field service, 32 years old and working in her area for 22 months. The reason for the creation of the Interim Employment Reference in this example is the beginning of her parental leave.

Extract from the Assessment Sheet:

Zwischenzeugnis-Beurteilungsbogen mit Angaben zu Leistungsbereitschaft, Arbeitsbefähigung, Soft Skills

In the assessment sheet the supervisor provided the following illustrative details:

  • Achieves a very high frequency of visits in her area, good deployment planning, works until late in the evening and also on weekends.
  • Has a positive aura that inspires the customers due to her natural manner. She spreads cheerfulness, wherever she goes.
  • Her reporting could be improved upon.
  • Partial shortcomings in her professional knowledge are currently made up for through product training and self-study of relevant literature
  • Top saleswoman – concerning her selling techniques, she knows every trick; prepares customer meetings individually the day before.

2. Example: creation due to change of superior

A Business Development Manager, 28 years old, in the company for 20 months. A change of superior in progress.

Extract from the Assessment Sheet:

Zwischenzeugnis-Beurteilungsbogen zum Ankreuzen für Arbeitgeber

Here, the supervisor provided further characteristic details, too:

  • Evaluates impulses from the area of Key Accounting regarding customer request intensively and in detail.
  • Participates in team meetings with a lot of good input.
  • Maintains local contacts with important key customers; excellent basis of trust; enjoys insight into internal development projects of customers.
  • Extensive travel activity!

Criteria for a legally secure and promotional text in Employment References

The path leading to an individual Employment Reference which is legally secure as well as promotional is relatively easy, if you consider the following aspects:

  1. The right wording is decisive.
    The German language in Employment References relies on well-established and familiar standards in the standard language.
  2. We need to consider our duty of benevolence and of truth.
    It should be obvious that the supervisors’ freely drafted remarks cannot be included word-for-word into the Interim Employment Reference.
  3. It is important to connect the individual remarks to the right common assessment criteria.

Information about professional knowledge, working methods or about quality and success would be misplaced in the criteria of willingness to work and ability to work.

Our individual wording in Interim Employment References

At Zeugnisfabrik NRW, we phrased the examples illustrated above for the criteria of willingness to work and ability to work as follows:

Individual wording for the medical sales representative (example 1):

Ms. Doe is an ambitious and dedicated sales representative. She convinces through expedient, thorough planning of her daily assignments as well as through an individual preparation for her customers. To this end, she works significant overtime in the evenings and on weekends.

Her distinct creativity and mental agility are as much a part of her personal strengths as her natural, authentic and positive charisma. In addition, Ms. Doe possesses sound judgment and uses contemporary sales techniques in an extremely versatile and skillful manner in customer pitches, which has quickly placed her among our top salespeople.

Individual wording for the Business Development Manager (example 2)

Mr. Doe convinces with his enormous enthusiasm and initiative. Determined, persistent and very successful, he is committed to linking our products with the needs of our customers.

Mr. Doe always copes perfectly with the high demands of his position and in particular with the strain of the large amount of travel. Thanks to his excellent intellectual grasp and his analytical and creative way of thinking, he quickly familiarizes himself with new tasks. His decisive ideas in working on customer projects as well as his contributions to solution approaches in team discussions are highly appreciated.