I have been looking for work for a while now and my job references are getting old and honestly I never trusted them. I got the whole concept wrong and just said yes when recruiters asked if they could call someone on my resume. Extremely dumb, as having an ex employer cold called probably had them in a bad mood. But I was too anxious to contact them to ask if they wanted to be a reference. I never really asked anyone cause my jobs were mostly toxic to me and I wanted out.
So I basically now just do not give permission to contact anyone. I am honest and tell them I think my references are too old and can't be a good reference to me. But deep down I don't trust anyone. I think I often got ghosted by recruiters because they called a previous employers.
I am not saying you should not get references. The more great references you have, the better. I just wanna give some reassurance to us folks who have been ghosted for no reason and who have been unemployed for a while, that it is ok to refuse permission to contact previous employers.