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Recently went through a process where references were needed. One of my references shared what was asked, and one of those was "what is person X's biggest weak
by lowercased 8y ago
Recently went through a process where references were needed. One of my references shared what was asked, and one of those was "what is person X's biggest weakness". There was an indication that submissions without answering that question would be discounted entirely.
I looked at your sample report, and it seems very much like an expanded "linkedin", where it's just about the positives. Knowing - honestly - where someone is weak will help avoid bad fits.
I've been a reference for a couple of folks recently, and I always ask the person calling what the style of the role in question is. Person X might be a great person and capable of XYZ, but only with support/oversight from a more senior person. If the role is expecting them to be self sufficient, and I know they need oversight, I'd try to push that. Me just saying "oh yeah, they're great", or only talking about the positives doesn't really help as much as a full set of questions which also include honest downsides/weaknesses.
- annawangx 8y ago> I looked at your sample report, and it seems very much like an expanded "linkedin", where it's just about the positives. Thanks for pointing that out! Our sample is just an example and does not show the answers to questions about developmental areas. > Me just saying "oh yeah, they're great", or only talking about the positives doesn't really help as much as a full set of questions which also include honest downsides/weaknesses. That's great product feedback, thank you. Our questions do pull out these details, and we'll emphasize that more in the future. For example, our questions include: "What colleague would best complement this person" and "How would you help a future manager set this candidate up for success?"
- jedberg 8y agoI would never give negative feedback about a former employee to anyone ever. I have no guarantee that that information is private, and they could sue me for defamation or a whole host of other things if they found out, especially if it ended up causing them not to get a job. That's real damages.
- annawangx 8y agoThanks for sharing. We allow references to decline a request for this reason. Also, by pulling references earlier in the process, we mitigate the causation between the feedback and a negative outcome.
- lowercased 8y agoIf you give 'good' feedback that turns out to be wrong in some sense (or it turns out that someone thinks you exaggerated positively), and they hired someone who caused them material damage... would that scenario prevent you from giving good feedback?
- alexgmcm 8y agoBut one is considered defamation/libel and can see you in court (at least in the UK) - the other is a slight inconvenience to a company you don't even work at.
- onion2k 8y agoHere in the UK, while it's not actually illegal to give someone a bad reference, no employer does because an inaccurate reference is grounds for legal action. You have to be able to provide evidence for everything you say. Consequently lots of employers only provide the dates you worked from and to and what your final salary was. The fallout from someone not getting hired because the "honest downsides" were a bit too honest (or not honest enough) would not be pretty.
- fhbdukfrh 8y agoThis is true everywhere in the sense that there's absolutely no upside to giving someone a bad references. About all you can do for someone terrible is confirm factual data and refuse to comment on any opinion based questions. The requester can't even interpret that as a negative endorsement because lots of companies only do the same thing for good candidates.
- annawangx 8y agoThanks for that perspective. This is a challenge for reference checks in general, and we are cognizant about the legal implications as we develop our product.