I hate the whole concept of references. I don’t want to ask a favor from someone in my past. I don’t want to keep contact info for former bosses or co-workers.
Our society is like:
Pull yourselves up by your bootstraps.
Have personal responsibility.
Your success or your failure is 100% due to your good or poor choices.
Employers: “By the way, you are going to need help from some strangers in your past in order to get a job with our company.”
Companies are constantly trying to figure out how to pay workers less. I would absolutely take less money if the hiring process didn’t have so much hoop-jumping. How has capitalism not figured that one out yet?
Why would a former employer say anything good or bad about you? What do they gain from it? In the US any questions about your previous work will just result in them saying “yes, they worked here for those dates”. Why would they help you or a competitor? You left and a competitor cuts into their profit margin.
I agree if “the employer” is a faceless corporation, someone who didn’t know you. But if it was your manager and you had a good working relationship why wouldn’t they give you a good reference? It’s not their profit margin, they just work there too.