Reference info in online applications

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader writes:

I'm currently in the process of filling out job ads. Many places require applicants to fill out online forms. These forms usually ask for reference contact info such as an email address and phone numbers. If you're using a third party document service like interfolio are you supposed to enter the "send.Referee" emails addresses that interfolio provides as the "contact email" for your references? Or should you enter the email addresses of the references? I've been told that it's the former, but in some cases, the job ads suggest that your references will be contacted directly and that makes me wonder if entering the interfolio address will suffice. Of course, emails for references are standardly found on our CV's, too. But I don't want to mess up these forms. Any help would be appreciated.

Good question. I don't know how search committees approach this stuff, but I suspect that many of those online forms that say that references will be "contacted directly" involve automated emails to letter writers. Since it can be a real pain for letter writers to continually upload letters (particularly if they have written letters for multiple candidates applying to many different jobs), I suspect the thing to do here is to put in the Interfolio link whenever possible, just to save your letters writers time and energy. I highly doubt much turns on it for search committee members. Are they really going to look askance at a candidate who submits a letter this way? It's hard for me to see how, especially if the letter writers' direct contact info is listed in the candidate's CV. But perhaps I'm wrong about this. Any search committee members able to weigh in?

Comments

[Placement Director and Search Committee Member]

You should put the Interfolio email address in. Interfolio will contact you if they can't upload your letters for some reason. Don't make your letter writers suffer through uploading these letters! Any search committee that would somehow discriminate against a candidate for using Interfolio is a search committee you do not want to work with.

[SLAC Associate (and frequent search member)]

Just use the Interfolio email address. If the committee is excited about your candidacy and for some reason they need your references' actual email addresses, they can contact you directly for that; they'll understand why you went the Interfolio route.

[applicant]

I've been uploading the Interfolio email addresses, as that was what I was instructed to do by my placement director. However, it is very important to check behind Interfolio to make sure they actually upload the letters when a school sends a request. In the last week they only sent letters about 80% of the time the schools requested them, without notifying me of this cancellation. When I called them, they couldn't explain why they had been cancelled (to their credit, they then expedited the cancelled letters).

[Bill Vanderburgh]

Use the Interfolio addresses. The referees' letters sent in response will include their contact info in case the committee needs to reach out. The request for info here is part of legacy HR systems that just haven't caught up to the realities of modern searches.

[on the market]

Put the Interfolio in. Sometimes Interfolio will contact you saying that the search committee requires something different, normally requiring that all the letters be sent to one single email address.

An additional note. If search committees have the ability to change the letter requirements from "type in each email of referees separately" to "send all the letters to one email address," that would save a lot of Interfolio deliveries, which may, in turn, save some money for applicants.