At some point the right answer is that the information is covered by the prospective employee’s NDA with the old company. Management changes might be associated with new business directions, which the old employer would not want to get out. So “I’m not at liberty to discuss that” would be a good answer if they get too deep.
I’m not sure if I’m reading you correctly, but when I was working it was clear that I was not allowed to give a reference for a former employee. I was asked, by a person I knew fairly well. When I retired I could and did. Employees speak for the company, and an employee running down someone is as bad as HR doing it.
Absolutely right. But while we’re at it, there is one thing many people don’t get. It is not just what the candidate says that counts, but also how they say it. Would you rather hire someone who gives answers in a monotone or someone who gives the same answers in a voice that makes it sound like they would be excited to work with you?
An interview is a performance. Interviews and auditions for acting jobs are a lot more similar than you might think. Think of it that way and you’ll have an edge.
Your experiences have been very different from mine, either as interviewer or interviewee.
I had a few comparable experiences with pharmacies. After I moved to another city, I was telling some stories, and my supervisor was skeptical, so she e-mailed a husband and wife she had gone to school with who lived in the first city; both of them were online, on separate computers, and responded with lengthy diatribes about how they knew exactly who she was talking about, and what the problems were and that they were probably even worse than whatever I had told her.
She came in the next morning and said, “You were right. Horrible, horrible mismanagement.”
For those of you who are wondering if this included the woman who had a near-fatal car crash and the reporters’ e-mail boxes crashed after they did stories about it, you’re right.
Same.