Advice required on reference letters

[quite eager]

Being a govt. servant from an administrative service group, I do not work in one organization all along and govt. keeps people like me posted in different organizations/departments from time to time. Stay at each new assignment is roughly one to three years. Though the responsibilities of each such organiztion are different, I mainly do the administration/coordination/supervision type of work, using basically the managerial skills. Some organizations are huge (having thousands of employees) while some are very small having only a skeleton staff, depending on the nature of their responsibilities.

I have learnt from the guidelines that personal references would not be acceptable to hsmp team. And, I believe they expect references from the employer. In my case, the ultimate employer is the central govt. but I work in different organizations under either the central or a provincial govt. and I was thinking of getting references from my previous bosses who are mostly my senior colleagues.

I wonder whether such references by my previous bosses who are also govt servants like me, but senior to me, would be sufficient to establish my senior level work exp. If not what are the alternatives?

Should I get a reference from that specific ministry of central govt. which recruited me initially ? But they can only give genralised info in the reference as to what kind of work people of my seniority usually do. They cannot give focused references on the working of a certian organization and my specific position/role in it.

I request for advice of all knowledgeable friends and the moderators on the above.

[buntosanya]

Hi quiteager,

I will advise you take reference from the ministry that recruited you in the first place before sending you to those other organisations. If the ministry doesn't mind i will advise you draft the reference for them giving in details the responsibilities you carried out while working in those organisations. All they will need to do is confirm what details you are giving them and confirm, as in date you were posted to those places and at what level and put same information on their letter head.

From experiennce i will advise when writing your reference you have to be specific about date, month and year when you are noting the duration you worked in a particular place.

You also have to note that HSMP are more interested in your years of supervisory level, but again i think this will depend on which country you are applying from. It was my agent who let me in into this when i was about applying, and my application was approved less than 4 weeks.

I applied from Nigeria and my first 8 years work experience in a Bank were not considered as graduate level, so i was told by my agent. I had to start my reference from the year i started heading a department till i became a Manager, and this must be minimum of 5 years experience. But like i said i don't know what will obtain for your country.

It is also important that you include the number of people you supervise in each department in the different organisations.

This was how i did mine, but some other people would have done theirs separately and still got the same result. I did mine through an agent and i know that from experiences they have gathered from submitting applications on behalf of several people they will know to an extent, what HSMP Team looks out for.

Hope this information is useful to you.

Goodluck

[quite eager]

Thanks a lot for your response buntosanya

I would be applying from Pakistan. To give a more clear picture of my situation, I must inform that during last more than 15 years of my service I have served against approximately eleven (11) positions in different organizations, having different responsibilities and roles. The last about seven, covering about nine years, have been at a fairly senior level. It might become too lengthy if my parent ministry starts mentioning my duties and responsibilities in detail.

Secondly, I have been progressing in my career gradually. Like after five years of service, I got my first promotion and after another seven years I got my second promotion and in next year two years I would get mature for another promotion. But as the system of govt. is, about 8 years back I was number two in a big organization having thousands of employees, but at the moment, I am doing a job of senior level with the assistance of only two people. No doubt this is comparatively a much senior and more important assignment than my job in the big organization I referred to above, but I am afraid that the hsmp team may not view this type of thing positively as they seem quite touchy about the number of people reporting to you. How do u view this situation ? Any ideas to handle this?

Regarding my references, I was just thinking of getting an overall generalised reference from my parent ministry mentioning my graduate level of work, years of service put in, gradual progression in job leading to senior positions and the duties common to most of my assignments. Further, I thought of supporting this document with references from my immediate bosses, at least last three, to establish senior level work experience for the last more than five years for claiming 50 marks. Woud this strategy work???

I would appreciate ur comments on the above. I would also request for comments of kayalami, mwazir, chess and our other moderators and members.

Many thanks.

[buntosanya]

hi,

Please i will like to know who does the promotion and pays the salary.

If it is the Ministry, then definitely it is the ministry that will give you the reference. When they send you on an assignment, i guess it is still under the auspices of the ministry and they definitely have specific goals and roles they want you to achieve wherever they have sent you. It is these general roles you have to put on your reference, which you have to summarise by putting the bullet points and not neccessarily every tiny bit of day to day task in the office.

Then i think as much as possible you will have to find a way of compressing the 11 years into maybe about 4 job titles.

This is my humble opinion. I guess some other people might still want to chip in one or two words of advice.

Wish you all the best


I don't know if they

[quite eager]

thanks for ur interest and effort to help

In the central government, every ministry has got its own budget and they pay to the people working with them from their allocated budget. The ministry which initially recruited me is genrally responsible for recruitment and human resourse management of all senior govt. officials. After joining govt service, one does not necessarily work in that ministry.

When one is not with the central govt, one is with a provincial govt who post the officer in any of their departments, as per their local needs and experience/expertise/seniority of the officer. So in that case the payment of salary is made from budget allocations for that department of the provincial govt.

Overall, it is one govt, but within its umbrella there are ministries at centre and provincial govts and provincial ministers.

I hope it's not very confusing.

Would request for more comments.

[buntosanya]

hi,

Since it is the provincial govt that post you out on assignment, then they should get the reference letter done.

My last advice still stands but this time around it should be the provincial govt given the reference and not the ministry that employed you.

Note also that it should be on their letter head.

Hope this is a little bit helpful.

Regards

[quite eager]

Thanks a lot buntosanya for ur valuable in put

Can we get comments of our busy moderators and other friends on the above