<p>For the past 8 months I've been working at an engineering firm but I decided to leave for graduate studies. At the moment, I'm trying to decide between 2 research groups (A, B). Group A has more interesting research but the prof does not adverstise how much he helps his graduate studies with finding work. Historically however, it is close to 100% in a very good location., I'm just not sure how much of an impact the Prof is in finding work. I've talked to various companies and they say that there is a definite need for graduates from this program. </p>
<p>Group B is more specialized and the Prof has put a huge emphasize on how much he helps his students get work. Once again, the placement rate here is close to 100%. Location is very important to me (family members are ill) and Group B's students are generally in undesirable locations. </p>
<p>If I have a good reference from my employer for the past 8 months I'd be pretty confident in my ability to get a good job after graduation. I gave almost a month notice and worked hard until the end. I always asked for more work when I was finished my task but I did mess up at times. There was one particular case where I entered the wrong data and my supervisor didn't catch it before sending it to the client. She had to call and ask them to throw out the report. They did however, interview my friend for my replacement so i don't think they totally hated me. </p>
<p>Even if I get a bad refence, I'm sure i'd get a job from group B because the Prof's recommendation would overthrow the bad reference but i'm not so sure about group A.</p>
<p>My question is...am i likely to recieve a bad reference? How much do companies care about 1 reference? I'm sure i can get a few other good ones.</p>