Referees: who to pick for an aged care nursing job

Your referees are the only part of your application you do not write. Everything else, the CV, the cover letter, the interview answers, you control. The reference check happens without you in the room, which is why the choice of who takes that call deserves more thought than it usually gets.

In aged care the reference check often carries more weight than it does elsewhere. Facilities are handing over clinical responsibility for frail residents, frequently on a shift where the new nurse is the senior clinician in the building. Employers want a person who has watched you work to say you are safe.

Pick people who supervised your clinical practice

The strongest referee is the person who was accountable for your work. A Clinical Care Coordinator, Nurse Unit Manager, Director of Nursing or Facility Manager can speak to your assessment skills, your documentation and how you behaved when a resident deteriorated at 3am. A colleague on the same level can only speak to what they saw from beside you.

Recency matters as well. A glowing reference from a manager you last worked with in 2018 raises the obvious question of who supervised you since. Aim for at least one referee from your most recent role, even where you left on ordinary terms rather than warm ones.

Two referees, two different angles

Most Australian employers ask for two. The pair works best when each person can speak to something the other cannot.

Ask first, then brief them

Call your referee before you list them. It is a courtesy. It also gives you the chance to check they remember your work in enough detail to be useful. A referee caught unprepared gives short answers, which reads as lukewarm even when they think highly of you.

Then brief them. Send the position description, the name of the facility and two or three things you would like them to mention. Where the role is a Clinical Care Coordinator position at a small rural home, your referee should know that before the phone rings so they can speak to the right parts of your practice.

What employers ask on the call

Reference checks in aged care follow a fairly consistent shape. Expect your referee to be asked to confirm the dates and title of your role, then to answer some version of the following.

• How did this nurse handle a resident who was deteriorating? Did they escalate appropriately?
• How was their documentation and medication administration?
• How did they work with families, particularly during a complaint or a difficult conversation?
• Were there any performance or conduct concerns during their employment?
• Would you employ them again?

That last question does most of the work. It is worth asking yourself honestly how each potential referee would answer it before you put their number on a form.

Pick the person who watched you work, then give them enough notice to say something useful.

Where references go wrong

The common failures are practical rather than dramatic. A mobile number that has changed. A referee on annual leave for three weeks. A manager who has left the organisation and whose work email now bounces. Any of these stalls an offer at the final step. A stalled process is where good candidates lose roles to someone whose paperwork moved faster.

Personal referees are the other frequent misstep. A family friend or a former patient cannot speak to your clinical practice, so they add nothing an employer can use. Keep the list professional. If you are short of supervisors, a clinical educator or preceptor is a far stronger option.

Employers verify your registration independently through the Ahpra public register, so your referees are not asked to confirm it. Their value is entirely in what they can say about your practice, which is worth remembering when you decide who to approach. Our guide to writing a nursing application that stands out covers the parts of the process you do control.

The bottom line

Two well briefed clinical supervisors with current contact details will serve you better than four impressive names you have not spoken to in years. Line them up before you apply rather than after an interview goes well.

If you are a nurse, treat your referee list as something you maintain rather than something you assemble under pressure. Update the numbers when people move. Keep the relationship warm enough that a call is comfortable. That is doubly true if you are changing settings, as our guide to moving from hospital to aged care nursing explains.

If you are a facility leader, the reference call is worth doing yourself for senior clinical roles. A five minute conversation with the last person who supervised a candidate tells you things a structured interview will not.