NPR.

If you've ever agreed to give an employee or a colleague a reference when they're applying for a job, you know the drill.

You hop on the phone or Zoom, you answer a few questions. And this used to be

quick, maybe a couple of minutes. But lately, if you agree to be a reference, odds are it's going to

take a lot longer. And that's because now, this kind of conversation that used to be a quick phone call,

it's morphed into a written process. There are multiple essay questions

you have to answer about the candidate forms you have to fill out. You have to rank their skills

using those little circles on a scale of one to ten. I mean, we all want to be helpful, right,

Dary? Of course, especially for our good colleagues that we've worked with.

Of course. But how did the burden switch to us? We're like a third party. Shouldn't the employer who's doing the hiring be the one who is doing the work here? This is unpaid labor. That's pretty

easy for me. I just put 10 for everybody. This is the indicator from Planet Money. I'm Darym Woods here

with reporter Sally Herships. Perfect 10. Thanks for having me. Today on the show, we do a check-in

on reference checks. We ask why employers are increasingly asking for them in writing, and we look

at what that shift tells us about how the hiring process is changing.

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T's and C's Apply. Hi, it's Terry Gross from Fresh Air. I just interviewed Billy Eilish and

Phineas about many things, including how Billy's signature baggy clothes came from watching

hip-hop videos. Instead of being jealous of the women who get to be around the hot men,

I would be jealous of the hot men. And I wanted to dress like them and I wanted to be able to

act like them. Find this fresh air interview wherever you listen to podcasts.

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