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Be very discerning. Check their email address. But yeah, I wouldn't even call a friend. I
would not even call a friend. But some people will say, "They've never really had an employer,
or I can't call his employer because he says it's not good working there, so I don't want
to call the employer because he's looking for a job and he'll lose his job, blah blah
blah." Call his teacher. That's one that a lot of people don't think of, but if they
don't have past employers, then call the teachers, because their teacher was their employer,
right? "How was he at getting his assignments in? How were they? Were they quarter-complete?"
Just ask questions.
You can't be disrespectful or degrading to anybody, and so you have to be careful giving
your feedback or whatever, your reference for someone. You can't badmouth a past employee.
Something that I've had a lot of people do, and I've had people do for me too, is I say
"Ask me questions, and I'll answer them with a yes or a no." Then I'm not offering, "Oh,
God, she hardly ever showed up on time," and that sort of thing. You can't say that. So
"ask me questions to which I can respond with a yes or no answer." That's something that
you might want to have, those yes or no questions, all ready. Then they won't hesitate to say
yes or no, because they're not saying anything incriminating.