a_cubed | Reference Requests (Reply)

One of the roles of a Personal Tutor in University is to act as a referee for their tutees. I have no problem with this. As Senior Tutor within my School at the University I'm well versed in the role of the Personal Tutor. However, i'm getting rather fed up of reference requests that are based on the concept of a previous employer or manager. I've had these a number of times int he past and, when the role is not a "graduate job" I usually muddle through it, particularly since with smaller employers they're not really expecting to deal with a lot of students/recent graduates.

However, today I got one that really irritate me. A lot of my current second year tutees are on a sandwich course and will be going out on placements next year. One of them will be working for Micro$oft, and I got a reference request from an agency today with the questions:

How long did this person work for you and in what capacity?
Are they honest, reliable and trustworthy?
What was their attendance record?
How was their compatibility with fellow colleagues?
How would you generally assess their work performance?
Would you re-employ?

Now, most of these are N/A given my working relationship with the student, and this is a reference for a STUDENT placement.

So, I've sent an irritated response to the agency suggesting that they get their act together and produce a suitable University tutor oriented reference request.