Do you Still Need to List References on your Resume?

For as long as professional careers have existed, so to have resumes been a necessary part of the job application process. Where you’re from, where you’ve worked, where you were educated, and the skills you possess, the fundamental ingredients of a resume have remained unchanged for hundreds of years. But for one section in particular, references, the prevailing consensus seems to have evolved in the past twenty years. Once unthinkable to not include at least three personal references, the rise of high-paying tech jobs, social media, and general informational transparency thanks to the Internet has led to references being excluded from applicants’ resumes more and more frequently. But whether this information is or is not included nowadays, the question remains, should it be present on your resume?

The point of including references in the first place

Let’s not take it for granted that we all know what the purpose of references are to begin with. What role do they serve? At their core, a list of references show proof of credibility through third-party verification. This means you’re providing a list of people that potential employers can contact directly that will hopefully vouch for you. On this call, they might ask things like “Did this person struggle with their work?” or “How well did they do with deadlines?” or maybe even a simple “Were you happy with their work?” This gives your potential future employer a way to verify your past employment and performance at former jobs without blindly taking you at your word on your resume. Beyond this, this touchpoint also gives potential employers a chance to gather a bit of character testimony beyond the simple skills and job responsibilities you have listed on your resume.

Less important for new graduates

New graduates in particular can have a difficult time completing a resume due to limited professional or extracurricular experience (we designed Gradly specifically to help in these circumstances). Because of this limited professional experience, this also means it can be extraordinarily difficult for new graduates to come up with a few good personal references as well. Professors or advisors can serve as potentially good references, but we would recommend avoiding this unless you had a very close working relationship with the professor or had worked directly with your advisor in some sort of meaningful capacity.

The good news is that employers often assume newer graduates have highly limited professional networks, so there is not often any strong expectation that you should be providing references directly on your resume. In fact, many career centers frequently advise leaving references off of your resume entirely, but still having some names and contact information ready to go in the event you are asked for them later in the process. There is a very good chance that you would never even be expected to provide them, but you do not want to find yourself in a position where you are asked for them and have to scramble to put the list together.

Less important nowadays where your skills are easily demonstrable

Historically, a list of references were a signal of trustworthiness when information was very hard (or effectively impossible) to confirm, but this is no longer the case for anyone in the Western world. Portfolios, GitHub repositories, online certificates, LinkedIn, and social media in general act as stronger proof points than a list of three references on a resume. Dozens of endorsements by former colleagues and supervisors on LinkedIn serve as tremendous references and also have the added benefit of letting recruiters avoid making a bunch of phone calls. Further, for those in tech, potential employers can easily evaluate technical acumen through contributions to public repositories, open-source activity, online side projects, or even live coding assessments. Technical interviews in general focus much more on real, in-the-moment problem-solving ability than personality referrals.

So do I include references, or not?

At the end of the day, the question of whether to list references on your resume is less about tradition and more about context. In many industries, references now come into play only after you’ve made it to the final stage of the hiring process. That means the resume real estate you might devote to listing them is almost always better spent sharpening the story of your own skills, experience, and impact. But that doesn’t mean references are obsolete. In the trades, in smaller organizations, or in roles where trust and reliability matter more than technical proof points, references remain a currency of credibility.

So the answer is less “yes or no” and more “when and where.” If you’re in tech, your GitHub and LinkedIn speak louder than any bullet point under “References available upon request.” If you’re a carpenter, plumber, or electrician, a strong endorsement from a former supervisor may still be worth its weight in gold. And if you’re a recent graduate, remember that references aren’t gone entirely, they might just be asked for later in the process.

The resume is evolving, but the principle remains unchanged: lead with what proves you can do the work. If that’s your portfolio, show it. If that’s your work experience, highlight it. And if, in your field, that’s still the name of someone willing to vouch for you, then by all means, list it.