One example Lublin submits of going the extra mile is to "draft talking points and recommendation letters for busy references -- subject to their final approval." Those talking points might highlight your outstanding work ethic, your irresistible sales techniques, your charming personality, and your role as a role model for the entire staff. Of course, your former manager might hesitate to use your talking points, but that attitude will quickly change when you inform him that upon being offered the new job you will return, unharmed, his golf clubs, his BMW, and his schnauzer.
If you don't consider kidnapping and blackmail as examples of "caring enough," the least you can do is inform your references about improvements in your workplace skills. "You might say, 'back then I wasn't as organized as I am now,'" suggests Street. Or, say I, you could inform your reference that "back then, I wasn't in constant communication with Martians as I am now, and therefore, was unable to successfully travel backward in the time-space continuum to re-arrange the molecular structure of our competitors."
The way I see it, the only person who wouldn't melt at that explanation has to be a Venusian.
"Contact references after they've spoken on your behalf, and use innovative methods to stay in touch a few times a year," is another bulletproofing technique. Traditional cornball techniques, like sending holiday cards, can now be technologically upgraded using "Google Alerts" to track the names of your references through cyberspace. But why stop there? Why not place a GPS-transmitter in your reference's car, and use your free, unemployed hours to track your reference in person! After three Jason Bourne movies you should know how to follow someone successfully. What better way to prove your commitment to a potential reference, and, hopefully, to get photographic proof of their involvement in an illicit love-nest with the schnauzer.
