From the book How to Prepare for an Employment Interview.
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You should have references ready to give the interviewer if they ask for them. Have them on paper so you can just hand over the sheet to the interviewer and avoid having to go through everyone's name and number and other details.
Three or four names should be enough, with their phone numbers (work and home, if possible), descriptive job title, and employer. You should also give an address, even though there's almost no chance that the interviewer will write to your references. If you can't get the address, however, it's not worth worrying over.
Whenever possible, your references should be former employers, clients, or customers who can speak about how they benefited from your work.
If you don't have any professional references, you can use personal references-people who know you and can speak about traits and abilities you have that would benefit the employer. Personal references are rarely as effective as professional ones because they tend to focus on YOU rather than what you've done for others. An exception may be if the person providing the reference is well-known or respected by the interviewer.
References help to calm the employer's fears
Your references give you one more opportunity to relieve some of the anxieties the employer is feeling about their hiring decision. If they reach the stage where they call your references, you've probably made it to the final hurdle. They've read your resume, talked to you in an interview, and have been left with the feeling that you may be the one they want to help them solve their problems.
Recall how the employer will suffer if...[continued here]
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