Made for Swiss self-employed & SMEs
Under Swiss law, an employee who asks for a reference is entitled to one that is truthful, benevolent and complete (Art. 330a of the Code of Obligations). That sounds simple. In practice it is a short, delicate piece of writing that many employers dread — and rush through at the last minute.
In a notary's office, a fiduciary, a doctor's practice or any small Swiss firm, a job reference is written only now and then, often for someone you have worked alongside for years. The stakes feel high, the phrasing is famously coded, and it always seems to land on your desk at the worst possible moment.
Why references feel heavier than they look
A job reference is only a page long, yet it carries a surprising amount of weight:
- The law sets the frame. A reference must be true, well-meaning and complete — omitting an important fact can be just as problematic as getting one wrong.
- The phrasing is coded. «to our full satisfaction» and «he made every effort» mean two very different things to a future employer who knows how to read between the lines.
- It is personal. You are writing about a real colleague, and those words follow them to their next job.
What AI can do — and what only you can do
AI is well suited to the mechanical part: the structure, the standard sentences, keeping the tone even and benevolent, and switching between German, French and English. It can turn a handful of facts into a clean first draft in a few minutes.
What AI cannot do is decide the grades. You know whether someone exceeded expectations or simply met them; no model can know that for you. The AI drafts, you judge. That division of labour is the whole trick.
A simple routine to write one
Step 1 — Gather the facts
Write down the essentials in plain bullets: the person's name, their role, the start and end date, the main responsibilities, and two or three concrete achievements. This short list is all the AI needs.
Step 2 — Decide the grades
Go through the usual categories — quality of work, quantity, initiative, conduct with clients and colleagues — and mark each one honestly: above expectations, fully met, or met. Do this before you open the AI, so the draft reflects your judgement rather than the model's guesses.
Step 3 — Let the AI draft
Give the AI your facts and grades and ask for a Swiss reference in the classic style:
I am a Swiss employer. Please write a job reference (Arbeitszeugnis) for [name], who worked as [role] from [start] to [end]. Main tasks: [list them]. Grades on the Swiss scale: quality of work — [above expectations / fully met / met], conduct with clients and colleagues — [above expectations / fully met / met], initiative — [above expectations / fully met / met]. Write it in the conventional Swiss style: warm but truthful and complete, using the standard phrasing for each grade. Keep it to one page.
Step 4 — Read it aloud
Print the draft and read it once, sentence by sentence, against your honest opinion. If a sentence feels a notch too generous or a touch too cool, adjust it. The final word is always yours.
The phrases that carry the grade
A Swiss reference speaks in a quiet code. A future employer reads these phrases as a scale, so it is worth knowing what you are signing:
- «always to our fullest satisfaction» — excellent
- «to our full satisfaction» — good
- «to our satisfaction» — satisfactory
- «he/she made an effort» — below expectations, a gentle warning
A useful rule of thumb: the warmer and more specific the wording, the better the hidden grade. If a reference praises punctuality at length and says little about the work itself, a careful reader notices.
A second prompt for the multilingual version
Swiss teams are often multilingual, and a reference written once may need to exist in German, French and English. Ask the AI to produce all three from the same facts, keeping the coded grades consistent:
Translate this job reference into French and English, keeping the Swiss reference conventions and making sure the grade implied by each phrase stays consistent across all three versions.
The outcome
A task that once cost a stressed evening and a vague «did I phrase that right?» becomes one sitting: gather the facts, set the grades, let the AI draft, and sign a reference you can stand behind. The person leaving gets a fair, warm send-off — and you get the certainty that every sentence is deliberate.
