Managers giving good references to shitty employees just to get rid of them

[Markxxx]

I’ve worked in H/R and you’d be surprised the things I heared from references. I used to think “Why would they put down someone who would give them a bad reference.” Well it happens.

A lot of times industry is very closed mouthed. When I worked in the hotel industry in Chicago, several times I got a decent reference only later to have the someone else from the place he worked call back and say “Mark this is off the record, don’t hire him.”

On the flip side, my last employer has a policy of only giving out start dates, end dates, if you gave notice and they will confrim salary (they won’t give it out, they will just confirm whether or not an amount is correct).

When I applied at once place, I went through six interviews and the H/R guy said “Mark we HAVE to have a real reference, if you can’t give me a name from that place, I can’t hire you hire.” I gave him a few names but they all referred the guy to H/R (as was company policy, only H/R gave out references).

The thing is though, after working in H/R there are all sorts of ways to give bad references without directly doing so. A lot of companies now use only faxed requests so they will have a written documentation of what was written down.

On the flip as an interviewer, what I do is in a round about way ask for their supervisor’s name. For instance I might say "Oh yeah I know her, I worked with her. You’re supervisor is Mary right? And he’ll say “No, it’s Wendy,” and I’d come back, “Hmm, must be thinking of someone else.”

So then I could call up Wendy and ask her directly, if I was suspicious.

But now-a-days, companies go bankrupt, the merge, etc so it’s often hard to find people.

[Heart_of_Dorkness]

In college, I was friends with an instructor. She told me that one of her students asked her for a letter of recommendation - I think it was for grad school, but perhaps a job, I can’t recall. This would be sent from her directly to anyone who requested it, so he couldn’t doctor it or even know what was in it. She initially refused, pointing out to this guy that he had only bothered to show up a handful of times, was disruptive when he did, and had failed the class, and she wasn’t going to lie. But he begged her to do it anyway, because this was the class he had done *best *in, and none of his other professors would write one. So she wrote it - a very factual, and therefore, very negative letter.

Also, this thread puts me in mind of stuff like this:

You’re called upon for an opinion of former employee who is extremely lazy. You don’t want to lie - but you also don’t want to risk litigation. = Try: “In my opinion, you will be very fortunate to get this person to work for you.”