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Recently in a presentation about networking the presenter mentioned that it is important to maintain a good relationship with your past academic supervisors and collaborates (teammates) because employers (industry employer, not academic employers) will go contact these people to gain information about you, especially you are a recent grad with net zero industry experience.

Is this a common practice? Does anyone know if employers will actually go out of their way to contact your supervisors even your teammates?

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    I've never run into the back-checking myself, but I've gotten several jobs/contracts (thinking back, more than I ever got through on-line job boards or professional recruiters) because the employer mentioned to a faculty member that they were looking for a person to do X, and they suggested talking to me as someone they thought could do it. So potential employers do contact their former professors &c to do recruiting.
    – jamesqf
    Feb 12, 2015 at 23:45

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In general, your supervisor will more likely be contacted if your graduate fellowship is listed as employment experience. Background checkers will likely interpret your supervisor as a "boss" and contact them accordingly, not to tease out the minutia of your research but to ensure such qualities as dependability, integrity, and punctuality.

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How deeply they check you out entirely depends on what industry you are going into and what company. If you're going to be a coding slave at Oracle, they probably don't give a damn. If you're interviewing where I work, however, we'll most certainly check you out...

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