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Selection

Contacting referees

Applicants are asked to nominate three or more referees, depending on the level of appointment. The purpose of a referee report is to obtain further information on the applicant's suitability for the role . The selection committee may choose to use referee reports at any of the following stages:

  • Prior to interview, to assist in the development of a short-list.
  • After short-listing, to have available at the interview stage.
  • After interviewing, to confirm and gain further information about candidates and/or separate closely matched applicants at the selection stage. Referee reports should be obtained for at least the two most highly ranked candidates.

Referee reports may be obtained via telephone, or in writing. Whichever method is used, committee members should be aware of the following issues:

Privacy and Referees

Monash University's Privacy policy, in certain circumstances, requires individuals to consent before information about them is given to or obtained from a third party.

Selection committee members should generally only contact referees who have been nominated by the candidate. Where the selection committee wishes to consult other persons, the candidate must be informed who they are, and provide consent before any contact is made with them.

Referees and others approached with the candidate's consent should be asked to provide a confidential report to the selection committee.

The University can promise to hold a referee's report “in confidence”, but only as far as the law permits.

Consistency and fairness

Referees should be provided with a copy of the position description and selection criteria and asked to frame their responses in relation to these. Referees should be asked the same core questions, in order to provide a consistent basis for comparison. Further questions may be asked in relation to the selection criteria or for clarification on information provided by the candidate or referee.

Confidentiality

Referee reports are required to be held in strict confidence and committee members are asked to take all necessary steps to ensure that confidentiality is maintained.

Relationship between the candidate and referee

It is important that the referees are sufficiently informed to comment on the candidate's performance. However committee members should be aware of the significance of the relationship between the candidate and referee, particularly if the referee is the candidate's current supervisor (i.e. there may be resentment about the candidate leaving their current position).

Requesting further referee reports

The selection committee may request the candidate to nominate further referees if:

  • the referees provided are unavailable
  • referee reports collected so far have been unhelpful
  • the committee feels that further referees will help separate two promising candidates
  • there is lingering doubt about some information a candidate or a referee has given
  • recent employers have not been nominated and the reference reports that they could provide are likely to be more relevant