The thread here about corporate HR inspired this inquiry.
So does it ever happen? Judging by some of the people I’ve had to work with over the years I certainly wouldn’t be surprised if it did, because if their previous supervisors had been honest there’s no way they would have been hired.
(Of course that’s assuming that our HR bothered calling their former companies, but from what I understand they’re usually pretty diligent about talking to people’s former managers)
I’m thinking of someone in particular, and yeah, he’ll get an acceptable reference despite being not just incompetent but downright poisonous. They got him out of here by claiming lay-off and publicly saying he took one for the team (yeah, right) so they will have to keep up the charade by saying he was competent here.
I pity the next place he goes.
My mother’s employer (a large national company which shall remain nameless) has a company policy of not providing references or answering questions other than “did they give two weeks notice when they quit?” The rationale is apparently that they do not want to get sued for providing negative references, so they provide none at all.
References are about as useless a tool as they come. They only prove that you worked somewhere and someone else acknowledges that there was a person working under there under your assumed identity. The potential employee in question is the one who picks their own references who could be anybody. The only big red flag is that if you have been working 10 years and can’t find three friends to vouch for you, there might be a problem. I have given references for lots of people and agreed to do it beforehand. I would do it for just about anybody that asked no matter the person’s job performance short of the really extreme violations. We have all had previous work issues. They may do great at a new company for all I know and I won’t stop them from trying. That is not for me to judge or predict and they can figure it out themselves.
If someone asked me to give them a reference, and I felt their performance had been absolutely abysmal, I couldn’t in good conscience give them any kind of reference aside from acknowledging having worked with them, and I would hopefully have the guts to tell them so to their face. Luckily, I haven’t been asked directly by anyone I didn’t have a high opinion of.
I have, however, been listed as “stealth” reference twice (that I know of) without my knowledge - both happened to be people whose performance, work ethics, and personality I felt were very lacking. In fact, I spent a good deal of time cleaning up business-related messes for both of them - each should have known better than to list me, but they were both the kind of clueless douches that think everyone just loves them.
Plus, both were also still employed at my workplace at the time, which demonstrates a level of arrogance that just gets me steamed. It’s pretty widely accepted that coworker references should only be used at former employers - it’s an awful position to put a coworker in.
I would have been happy to have these guys gone, but I can’t in good conscience lie, even to a complete stranger. Not to mention, what if I ever had to interview with the same company? Portland’s not a huge job market - would they remember me as the guy who recommended the schmuck who quoted Glengarry Glen Ross incessantly, and whose idea of a sales strategy consisted of “discount until PO arrives”?
So I was very tactful, but also very honest, both times. However, both times, after I got off the phone, I walked straight over to their manager, and told them what just happened. And wouldn’t you know it, before long, we didn’t have to put up with them - problem solved.
I would have thought this wouldn’t happen for someone going outside, since they wouldn’t want anyone to know. Looks like I’m wrong. My case was a big company where the donating division was far away from us both geographically and organizationally. It also was a very big company - I’m not sure it would happen in a smaller one where there is at least some sense of ownership.
The division in question was downsizing, so it is very possible that the manager thought he was doing the person a favor, and he was - just not us. It is also possible that the manager was an idiot who didn’t realize how bad this person was, but I doubt it.
When I worked Armored, they took a guy from another branch in another state, based on a solid recommendation from that branch manager.
Turned out that the guy had a rather shaky medical excuse (translation; not nearly as well documented as it needed to be for the behavior) for constant absences due to “migraines”.
The last month I worked there, he worked all of TWO DAYS the entire month. On my very last day, the first day of the following month, he finally showed up again, not having been in for three solid weeks. Without a single scrap of medical evidence, doctor’s note, nothing at all, to explain why he hadn’t been in.
Fired on the spot.
Unfortunately, it took them almost a year to get to that point, because the corporate legal department wanted to make sure he couldn’t sue them and so was constantly trying to nail the guy down with a real diagnosis and medical statements.
But again, hired on a solid, glowing recommendation from the branch in the next state over.
The concept has certainly been around for a long time- an episode in (IIRC) the first series of The Brittas Empire (c.1990) involves the Leisure Centre Manager (Gordon Brittas, AKA [del]Rimmer[/del] Chris Barrie) explaining to his off-sider that just because someone’s “A bit of a chocolate teapot” (ie, completely useless) doesn’t mean you can fire them, and the best thing you can do is give them a glowing reference and hope you can offload them onto someone else.
It’s strongly implied that this is how Brittas ended up as manager of the Whitbury New Town Leisure Centre, too. 
While that may be true for large business/corporations, it is not so true for smaller businesses. In my field, business owners share openly, knowing that there is little chance of lawsuits if all involved have something to lose.
I have answered the “would you hire them again” question with, “not if terrorists were holding my family hostage”.
I remember that programme! Ah, Rimmer.
“What would you say about Incompetent’s work?”
A(Incomp still works here): S/He’s among the best people I’ve worked with in this industry!
A(Incomp no longer works here): I’ve seen reports that Incomp has done some work, but they’ve now been reshelved under fiction.
“Would you hire Incomp again?”
A(Incomp still works here): Seeing him/her on the other side of the interview table is one of my fondest dreams!
A(Incomp no longer works here): Only if I needed to drop our stock price.
I’ll give fabulous references to people whose work I respect, and to people I want to see out of the company. I will not use my knowledge of them looking for new jobs to get them fired unless they’re actually malignant; never know when someone’s good opinion is going to be useful.
My personnel managers always told me to be mum about employees I’d canned, to avoid lawsuit. “Just give out name/rank/serial number” Meaning dates of employment and final title.
But I didn’t care. If they were disruptive or thieves or simply lazy, I figured the prospective employer deserved to know. Although I’d always couch it in impersonal terms “He was accused of being disruptive, suspected of being a thief, and his output indicated he was lazy”
This has recently been an issue for me, internally. I have a less than stellar employee working for me, who thinks he is wonderful and should be given a promotion and giant raise, when I think he is just barely getting to the “Achieves Expectations” level. As a result, he has grown disgruntled and is applying for any open position within the company that remotely fits his “skills” (this is a very large company where movement between departments is common and often encouraged).
However, the problem arises when the potential hiring manager calls me and asks about him - part of me wants to say how great he is jsut to get rid of him, but I also know doing so will evenutally come back on me once they figure him out.
So I’m stuck in this catch 22 of honesty and self preservation. If only the job market was better, he’d go external in a second I think…
The guy they hired to replace me when I left my old job is grossly incompetent, to the tune of being completely incapable of following directions, learning new tasks, doing old tasks a different way… hell, he repeatedly killed animals due to sheer, outright, gross negligence. For whatever reason the boss refused to fire him. He’d always just say things like “well… write him up” or “tell him to be more careful”. As long as the boss wasn’t the one who had to deal with him, he could happily ignore it. It was abso-friggen-lutely mind-boggling what this kid effed up with zero consequence.
Yesterday was his last day. He eventually quit to go back to school or something. The boss very consciously let him continue to work there until he wanted to stop working there, so the guy wouldn’t have it “on his record” that he’d gotten fired, and the boss could “at least provide him a reference”.
:mad::eek: WTunholyF?
This is why I can’t work for other people anymore.
I’m dying to know what line of work you’re in that this wouldn’t get you arrested, let alone fired.
Oh trust me, I tried to see that it happened on more than one occasion. I reported it up several layers in the chain of command and followed all the proper federal reporting protocols. So far, to the best of my knowledge, no one even spoke to the guy about it.
ETA: I mean, after the third or fourth time it happened, they started giving him other things to do that didn’t involve handling live animals, but as far as I’m aware he was never punished or taken to the proverbial woodshed in any way whatsoever for his negligent actions.
I gave a positive review to a subordinate once - those with negative reviews weren’t allowed to transfer. I didn’t want her to work for me anymore and she wanted a position in another group.
After I gave her that review, I told her it was a gift - she agreed that it was.
We both won.
But… what’s the job? Cattle rancher? Zookeeper? Lab tech? Veterinarian?
I’ve known a couple of guys who built careers out of this. One guy was hired by our company president without asking if any of us knew him. I didn’t but I did know a guy at the company the jerk was leaving. My friend actually sent me a condolence card for the sorrow I would experience.
Bullfighter.