8 ms·

My Job Offer Was Rescinded After I’d Given Notice

41 points by WithinReason 5y ago

jacknews 5y ago
The whole process of having to get a positive reference to change employer, really seems quite backward, almost evoking a slave-owning system. I understand that it can be useful input to a hiring decision, but there are surely better ways to obtain that validation.
- metters 5y ago
  Making it a requirement for being hired is plain dumb. Even if the employee was doing a great job and getting along with everyone, the employer could be pissed that the employee wants to quit and deny that request… Addition: It is similar to making it a requirement to own a university degree for a senior dev position. There are enough devs out there with many years of experience.
- wonderwonder 5y ago
  Agreed 100%. One bad relationship with a manager and there goes your career.
yosito 5y ago
There are a lot of comments saying not to quit until you've got a signed contract. In my career, in the US, I've had 10 jobs. All but one of them were "at-will" contracts that didn't require the employer giving any notice or reason to end the relationship. In fact, one did so on the first day. So I'm not sure that a signed contract is a guarantee of anything these days, at least in the US.
- jakelazaroff 5y ago
  It’s not a guarantee (although what in life is?), but it’s definitely safer than resigning based on a pending offer contingent on your now-previous manager’s reference. The US really needs stronger labor protections.
- jeromegv 5y ago
  Well it's just the bare minimum. Imagine quitting before you even got a contract. Doesn't mean it's full proof, but it's a good start.
- MattGaiser 5y ago
  The only defense is the ability to always get another job quickly. And if you need to have that capability anyway...
- danaris 5y ago
  And that's assuming you even get a formal contract. I don't have one. Never have, and neither has my wife. When you're not explicitly working as a contractor, it's quite common in the US to have no explicit contract of employment. You're hired, you're on the payroll, you have a job description, but the only things governing your relationship with your employer are the policies of whoever hired you and whatever laws are relevant to where you and they are.
- MrWiffles 5y ago
  The other thing to bear in mind is that a signed contract doesn’t mean shit unless you’ve got the money for attorney’s fees to enforce it. And having just been screwed out of both jobs like this poor person was, that’s a pipe dream. Yeah some people have good savings and interments that could draw on, but a whole lot of us in the US don’t, even with the salaries in our industry. Either they’re early in their career or have been through massive hardship, sometimes several such hardships (like me). And in most jobs people aren’t paid well enough relative to costs of living to be able to break that paycheck to paycheck cycle, so you’re totally out of luck because unless it’s a case with clear proven malicious intent way beyond the bounds of even the most red of red state loopholes for the rich and other corporate entities, they’ll just give you a right to sue declaration or something and leave you to fend for yourself. Speaking from experience here. And no, contrary to popular belief, attorneys don’t always take good cases on contingency, especially one that could drag on a while. Why wait 2-12 years for a fat payday, no matter how sure a thing?
vmception 5y ago
Don't worry, in America the neighborhood might successfully pitch in for your funeral after you stopped being able to afford insulin.
h2odragon 5y ago
Knew a fellow who was hired to be the editor of a small town newspaper. He moved his family across the state, showed up at the office the first day, and... the owner had passed away over the weekend, the new owners were shutting down and firing everyone, and "oops no one here knows anything about your employment." That was rough. He wound up starting an advertising circular type thing and got along OK. Writers and publishers... it's a compulsion.
- OldHand2018 5y ago
  FYI - crossing state lines for a job that has disappeared when you arrive violates (really old) federal law. That guy could have sued the new owners.
  - h2odragon 5y ago
    Good to know; in this case it was across the state, not across a line. Tampa to a little place near Jacksonville, FL. And in that case "Sue the new owners" wasn't gonna work anyway, they were the family that owned the rest of the county. The paper had been the effort of one of their strays and was being ended with prejudice. The story was quite entertaining, in a squalid local swamp politics way.
  - danaris 5y ago
    Can you give more details—the name of the law, for instance? I'm very interested in that. (though fortunately not for pressing personal reasons!)
    - vmception 5y ago
      but to van&ban any company playing games in the future!
sjroot 5y ago
Do not give notice to your current employer until you’ve passed all checks, signed all paperwork, and received your start date with the new employer. Any employer that expects otherwise should be avoided at all costs. Admittedly, even this is not entirely full-proof, but it is the bare minimum.
- slothtrop 5y ago
  I know someone who moved cities for work and was let go during the probationary period, after a couple of weeks. Just one of those "we decided to move in a different direction" type of rationalizations. Certainly I'd follow your advice but it seems like there's always a risk.
  - metters 5y ago
    I did not move, but was let go at the end of my probationary period without prior notice. It was the time of the first corona shutdown and they could not really onboard me properly (at least from my perspective), so my performance suffered. The point I want to make here is, that no one on the team had the balls to tell me that they are unhappy with my performance and instead told my boss very late. I did not have a chance to improve or change anything. It can happen to anyone and any time. In hindsight this is still the best thing that could have happened to me.
- MattGaiser 5y ago
  Even expecting a reference from your current manager is a reason to avoid an employer. You just stole their employee and you expect the truth?
- antihero 5y ago
  > received your start date How can you commit to a start date if you don't give notice?
  - williamdclt 5y ago
    I know my notice is 2 months, so I know I can commit to a start date in 2 months + 1w if you send the contract by end of week
2rsf 5y ago
> a final offer, containing the following clause: “This final confirming offer remains contingent on satisfactory receipt of a reference from your current manager as of this letter date.” Why would someone sign something like this? or at least be aware that it's a risk
- jghn 5y ago
  It's been a while since I've seen this. I don't know if it's a product of a different era or just luck of the draw but I saw this a fair amount in the 90s and early aughts. It never made much sense to me for obvious reasons.
  - 2rsf 5y ago
    I saw something similar about doing a background check with your current employer, but a full reference? that's crazy
moksly 5y ago
Never quit until you have a signed contract. I wouldn’t take it as though the previous manager gave them pause, however, people come and go and good managers manage that. It’s far more likely that HR was disconnected from the people actually making the decision and did a piss poor job of being a responsible HR department. HR is never your friend though, HR is internal management consulting and you should never forget that when you are not the person who asked them to consult.
- demygale 5y ago
  I’ve always worked in “at will” states (GA, TX), and as a result have never signed an employment contract. The only one I have ever been offered just limited my rights in the form of non-compete clauses and had nothing on my side with regards to length of employment or severance or anything.
aynyc 5y ago
First, never quit until you got the final signed contract with everything cleared, including, background check, drug tests, etc.. Funny enough, one of my coworkers from previous job did what the author did, he lost both jobs, so he sued both. I don't know the outcome (NDA), but he did managed to get settlement from my old company.
- antihero 5y ago
  > drug tests How common are these in tech in the US? If they were commonplace in London I am pretty sure the candidate pool would be slashed by about 95%
  - aynyc 5y ago
    Many regulated industries have drug tests. I personally have been asked for drug tests in finance (capital market) and health care. I'm pretty sure defense contractors, as well as governments and some government-adjacent jobs might require it. Also, my understanding of the drug test I took isn't about cannabis, but more on the hard drugs.
    - athorax 5y ago
      Anything related to the Department of Transportation usually is pre-employment + "random" tests
  - pjbeam 5y ago
    Extremely uncommon outside of federal government related things. Maybe some other niche industries but definitely not the norm.
    - Ancapistani 5y ago
      I believe this is highly regional. Drug tests are extremely common in the South and Midwest, when applying for an in-person position at least. I’ve not had to get one since joining “the tech industry”, but my family members who are more traditionally employed all have them every time they switch jobs and are at least theoretically subject to random testing - including those working at the C-level of very large companies.
giantg2 5y ago
My company won't give references and won't even allow managers to give a reference. They also blacklist you, so when you do leave you won't be allowed to come back. If that's the way they play it, my plan if I get a new job is to simply ghost my current one.
- traceroute66 5y ago
  > My company won't give references and won't even allow managers to give a reference. Most sensible companies these days will only do one of the following: (a) Give no reference; or (b) Give a factual reference (i.e. dates employed, job role(s) and, erm... that's it). Providing more information, especially in non-US countries where employment and privacy law is on the side of the employee is only inviting the opening of cans of worms.
  - giantg2 5y ago
    That's understandable, if that's the only thing. But that plus being blacklisted seems like the company isn't just concerned about employee privacy. Not to mention, even if the employee asks a manager for a letter of recommendation or reference, there would be no privacy concern and the company considers that a fireable offense for the manager if they give one. Seems like anticompetitive behavior to me.
  - sumthinprofound 5y ago
    (b) was policy from HR at my last employer and I would always forward HR any reference I wrote for employees for review before sending to make sure it complied with their requirements. There was more flexibilty for reference letters written for summer interns but that was a more informal process.
- technotarek 5y ago
  My $0.02, something that has taken me a long time to accept: never burn bridges.
  - giantg2 5y ago
refurb 5y ago
Not a lawyer (but did take a business law class!) and there is something known as promissory estoppel (likely the same detrimental reliance). No doubt I’m butchering how it works, but basically one can sue for “damages” incurred due to someone not following through on a promise or implied agreement. Contract not always required, just reasonable actions based on a reasonable expectation of someone following through. A good example might be a neighbor agreeing to build a fence if you purchase the wood. You buy it, they back out and you can’t return it. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estoppel https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estoppel
- sys_64738 5y ago
  Employment is at-will in the USA. They can fire you on day one no questions asked.
  - literallyaduck 5y ago
    In a lot of States that is true, but not all. https://www.ncsl.org/research/labor-and-employment/at-will-employment-exceptions-by-state.aspx https://www.ncsl.org/research/labor-and-employment/at-will-e...
    - kube-system 5y ago
      Those are a list specific exemptions to at-will-employment; all of them follow at-will-employment other than those exemptions.
    - MrWiffles 5y ago
      Maybe it didn’t display because mobile, but could you or someone explain what each heading in that table means? I’ve never heard of ANY exception to at-will, and I’m in the process of figuring out which state I want to live in now that I’ve decided to leave Texas for good (long story). I’d like to have some idea of the employment protections, such as they are, available in other states and this looks like a great start-if I knew what each heading meant!
  - LanceH 5y ago
sys_64738 5y ago
Geo would make this easier. It's in NY Mag which suggests USA but we don't have employment contracts in most at-will states.
- abeppu 5y ago
  I think employment contracts often exist but only lay out rules (agreement to use arbitration, assignment of IP, NDA, agreeing to not bring class action suits, ...) and explicitly lay out that employment is at-will. You can sign a large and complex document in which the prospective employee agrees to be bound by a bunch of restrictions but is not actually established as an employee.
giantg2 5y ago
I see a lot of people talking about signed contracts. It's not a bad suggestion, but might not be worth as much as one thinks (in at-will states). Most of these "contracts" are just one page documents saying the company makes the rules and can change them at any time with or without notice, that they can terminate or lay you off at any time for any reason (at-will states).
slackfan 5y ago
Ha, I narrowly avoided exactly this situation. Had an offer signed, then got jerked around in the background check process for a few weeks, and then finally got a "sorry, we found a more qualified candidate, so we're rescinding the offer". Must say I was glad that I grit my teeth and refused to put in my notice at my other job. The schadenfreude and relief at having dodged a massive bullet really kicked in when I found out who was the "more qualified candidate" eight months down the line at a local DevOps days.
- xroche 5y ago
  > more qualified candidate Also knows as "the candidate we can pay less"
  - slackfan 5y ago
    Considering the pay that they were offering me was already pretty bottom-of-the-barrel for the local area, maybe, maybe not.
SkipperCat 5y ago
If a company asks you to resign you job and then conditionally offers you a job based upon your current manager's recommendation, that's a major red flag. Walk away. I would never put someone's employment in that type of limbo. To me, that just shows that the new employer does not value people. Employees are just object to be managed. Also, its hard in the US to get a legit work contract an an employee - its all "at will" labor. If you really a solid guarantee, become a 1099 contractor and get a contract for services, where there are the three main components - an offer of payment, an offer to supply labor and a signed agreement by both parties.
travisgriggs 5y ago
Of course the usually litany of “don’t leave your current job without securing the next one.” But to me, the real red flag of this story was the offer. That the hiring company had a policy like that, should have been a “thanks for the offer, but I think now’s not quite the right time, check back in the future” moment.
- MrWiffles 5y ago
  THIS. When you’re desperate to leave, I get that for sure, but you nailed it here because now the author’s even more desperate than she was before, unfortunately. Begging to get back a job you hate has got to be the worst… And yeah, people need to get better about making it clear that we have a right to screen for bad employers just as much as they screen for bad employees. Lack of social safety nets in the US makes this hard though, understandably. How can you say no in spite of red flags when you don’t have a way to pay rent due at the end of the week? There should be some kind of retaliation-impossible, big-money-and-censorship-immune-by-design employer review site out there for people to talk about this kind of stuff. I confess I don’t know how to insulate against those threat models while keeping the trash out and establishing/maintaining credibility… Ideas welcome! :-)
PragmaticPulp 5y ago
This candidate was lulled into violating one of the rules of interviewing: Never say anything bad about your current employer, manager, team, or company. > I simply told the HR person that my previous boss and I didn’t have a good relationship, and that I could not rely on her for a reference. If a company presses for a reference from your current employer and you don’t think it would help, simply decline. Most people can point to non-solicit clauses in their employment contracts that disallow employees from recruiting or facilitating employees from being hired away from the company. Whatever you do, don’t volunteer information that you were not in the good graces of your manager. That’s a warning sign that something might have been wrong or that the employee is problematic. Offer alternative references or give excuses that the reference isn’t allowed due to non-solicit. But don’t volunteer an implied negative reference on behalf of the person most recently familiar with your work performance. This specific story doesn’t entirely make sense, though. If the employee already quit their previous job and had an offer that was contingent upon a reference from the previous manager then it doesn’t make sense to continue to withhold the reference. Withholding the reference is the only 100% way to lose the job offer. They should have at least had a conversation with the previous manager and asked for a good reference for a non-zero chance that the manager would help them out. It doesn’t make sense to choose the only guaranteed option to lose the job offer.
- cocoa19 5y ago
  Even if you think the reference will help, I'd still decline. There's no reason to risk your current job until the new job is secured.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - jareklupinski 5y ago
    yea, it seems very strange to have an offer contigent on your previous employer being amicable to letting you go...
christobell 5y ago
I'm sorry to hear about your situation. You should've double checked all of the things needed before you jumped in to the conclusion.
waylandsmithers 5y ago
Here's something tangentially related: how much information would you disclose about other companies you're interviewing with? Personally having just gone through a job search, I wanted to be transparent and when asked did tell companies that I was interviewing with a number of places- ok, totally reasonable. Then as things played out, I made it through the process with one company, while the rest said no after some misadventures in maximum binary tree depth. The one company that liked me, in good faith, asked about the interviews with other companies, so I just said "You're my top choice currently" not wanting to give some negative signal that I couldn't cut it with the others, but also not wanting to seem like I was just playing hardball.
OldHand2018 5y ago
So this person violated a few unwritten laws of job switching, but you have to have some compassion for her - she was in a terrible job and was looking for a way out. You'd make mistakes too.
gwbas1c 5y ago
> My previous boss had a personal vendetta against me and made my time working for her really difficult. Eventually, I was moved out from under her to a different team within the same department. So when asked, I simply told the HR person that my previous boss and I didn’t have a good relationship, and that I could not rely on her for a reference. IMO, I wouldn't consider this person "my previous boss" and just provide a reference from a previous employer. I wonder how long they worked together? Was it a few weeks, months, or years?
wonderwonder 5y ago
Most large companies I have worked for now have switched to a system of only confirming employees employment dates and providing no other information. Litigation cost has driven this move. Seems like a good one, your entire career could be torpedoed by one disagreeable manager otherwise. Interviews are there to ensure the candidate is a good skill / social fit. If the interview is not doing the job then you need to change your interview process.
BrandoElFollito 5y ago
As a French, this whole idea of references in the US blows my mind. How can you get a good reference from the employer you just left? There is this surrealist idea of work ethics where the employer would say that John was great and we don't mind he left us in the middle of a project. I was asked once by a US company for references, gave a few good friends who said that I was the next Elon Musk combined with Einstein, and probably Peace Nobel Prize winner. And that I had this terrible flaw of working my ass off for my company. I passed with flying colors I am glad that with everything wrong we have on France, at least we do not go through this madness.
- mbg721 5y ago
  I once worked for a company that prohibited anyone working there from providing employment references (out of a fear of exposing the company to legal liability). Yet when they were hiring, they still asked candidates for them, and treated it as a red flag if they couldn't get them. I thought that was awfully cheeky.

41 points by WithinReason 5y ago

The whole process of having to get a positive reference to change employer, really seems quite backward, almost evoking a slave-owning system. I understand that it can be useful input to a hiring decision, but there are surely better ways to obtain that validation.

metters 5y ago
Making it a requirement for being hired is plain dumb. Even if the employee was doing a great job and getting along with everyone, the employer could be pissed that the employee wants to quit and deny that request… Addition: It is similar to making it a requirement to own a university degree for a senior dev position. There are enough devs out there with many years of experience.
wonderwonder 5y ago
Agreed 100%. One bad relationship with a manager and there goes your career.

yosito 5y ago

There are a lot of comments saying not to quit until you've got a signed contract. In my career, in the US, I've had 10 jobs. All but one of them were "at-will" contracts that didn't require the employer giving any notice or reason to end the relationship. In fact, one did so on the first day. So I'm not sure that a signed contract is a guarantee of anything these days, at least in the US.

jakelazaroff 5y ago
It’s not a guarantee (although what in life is?), but it’s definitely safer than resigning based on a pending offer contingent on your now-previous manager’s reference. The US really needs stronger labor protections.
jeromegv 5y ago
Well it's just the bare minimum. Imagine quitting before you even got a contract. Doesn't mean it's full proof, but it's a good start.
MattGaiser 5y ago
The only defense is the ability to always get another job quickly. And if you need to have that capability anyway...
danaris 5y ago
And that's assuming you even get a formal contract. I don't have one. Never have, and neither has my wife. When you're not explicitly working as a contractor, it's quite common in the US to have no explicit contract of employment. You're hired, you're on the payroll, you have a job description, but the only things governing your relationship with your employer are the policies of whoever hired you and whatever laws are relevant to where you and they are.
MrWiffles 5y ago
The other thing to bear in mind is that a signed contract doesn’t mean shit unless you’ve got the money for attorney’s fees to enforce it. And having just been screwed out of both jobs like this poor person was, that’s a pipe dream. Yeah some people have good savings and interments that could draw on, but a whole lot of us in the US don’t, even with the salaries in our industry. Either they’re early in their career or have been through massive hardship, sometimes several such hardships (like me). And in most jobs people aren’t paid well enough relative to costs of living to be able to break that paycheck to paycheck cycle, so you’re totally out of luck because unless it’s a case with clear proven malicious intent way beyond the bounds of even the most red of red state loopholes for the rich and other corporate entities, they’ll just give you a right to sue declaration or something and leave you to fend for yourself. Speaking from experience here. And no, contrary to popular belief, attorneys don’t always take good cases on contingency, especially one that could drag on a while. Why wait 2-12 years for a fat payday, no matter how sure a thing?

vmception 5y ago

Don't worry, in America the neighborhood might successfully pitch in for your funeral after you stopped being able to afford insulin.

h2odragon 5y ago

Knew a fellow who was hired to be the editor of a small town newspaper. He moved his family across the state, showed up at the office the first day, and... the owner had passed away over the weekend, the new owners were shutting down and firing everyone, and "oops no one here knows anything about your employment." That was rough. He wound up starting an advertising circular type thing and got along OK. Writers and publishers... it's a compulsion.

OldHand2018 5y ago
FYI - crossing state lines for a job that has disappeared when you arrive violates (really old) federal law. That guy could have sued the new owners.
- h2odragon 5y ago
  Good to know; in this case it was across the state, not across a line. Tampa to a little place near Jacksonville, FL. And in that case "Sue the new owners" wasn't gonna work anyway, they were the family that owned the rest of the county. The paper had been the effort of one of their strays and was being ended with prejudice. The story was quite entertaining, in a squalid local swamp politics way.
- danaris 5y ago
  Can you give more details—the name of the law, for instance? I'm very interested in that. (though fortunately not for pressing personal reasons!)
  - vmception 5y ago
    but to van&ban any company playing games in the future!

sjroot 5y ago

Do not give notice to your current employer until you’ve passed all checks, signed all paperwork, and received your start date with the new employer. Any employer that expects otherwise should be avoided at all costs. Admittedly, even this is not entirely full-proof, but it is the bare minimum.

slothtrop 5y ago
I know someone who moved cities for work and was let go during the probationary period, after a couple of weeks. Just one of those "we decided to move in a different direction" type of rationalizations. Certainly I'd follow your advice but it seems like there's always a risk.
- metters 5y ago
  I did not move, but was let go at the end of my probationary period without prior notice. It was the time of the first corona shutdown and they could not really onboard me properly (at least from my perspective), so my performance suffered. The point I want to make here is, that no one on the team had the balls to tell me that they are unhappy with my performance and instead told my boss very late. I did not have a chance to improve or change anything. It can happen to anyone and any time. In hindsight this is still the best thing that could have happened to me.
MattGaiser 5y ago
Even expecting a reference from your current manager is a reason to avoid an employer. You just stole their employee and you expect the truth?
antihero 5y ago
> received your start date How can you commit to a start date if you don't give notice?
- williamdclt 5y ago
  I know my notice is 2 months, so I know I can commit to a start date in 2 months + 1w if you send the contract by end of week

2rsf 5y ago

> a final offer, containing the following clause: “This final confirming offer remains contingent on satisfactory receipt of a reference from your current manager as of this letter date.” Why would someone sign something like this? or at least be aware that it's a risk

jghn 5y ago
It's been a while since I've seen this. I don't know if it's a product of a different era or just luck of the draw but I saw this a fair amount in the 90s and early aughts. It never made much sense to me for obvious reasons.
- 2rsf 5y ago
  I saw something similar about doing a background check with your current employer, but a full reference? that's crazy

moksly 5y ago

Never quit until you have a signed contract. I wouldn’t take it as though the previous manager gave them pause, however, people come and go and good managers manage that. It’s far more likely that HR was disconnected from the people actually making the decision and did a piss poor job of being a responsible HR department. HR is never your friend though, HR is internal management consulting and you should never forget that when you are not the person who asked them to consult.

demygale 5y ago
I’ve always worked in “at will” states (GA, TX), and as a result have never signed an employment contract. The only one I have ever been offered just limited my rights in the form of non-compete clauses and had nothing on my side with regards to length of employment or severance or anything.

aynyc 5y ago

First, never quit until you got the final signed contract with everything cleared, including, background check, drug tests, etc.. Funny enough, one of my coworkers from previous job did what the author did, he lost both jobs, so he sued both. I don't know the outcome (NDA), but he did managed to get settlement from my old company.

antihero 5y ago
> drug tests How common are these in tech in the US? If they were commonplace in London I am pretty sure the candidate pool would be slashed by about 95%
- aynyc 5y ago
  Many regulated industries have drug tests. I personally have been asked for drug tests in finance (capital market) and health care. I'm pretty sure defense contractors, as well as governments and some government-adjacent jobs might require it. Also, my understanding of the drug test I took isn't about cannabis, but more on the hard drugs.
  - athorax 5y ago
    Anything related to the Department of Transportation usually is pre-employment + "random" tests
- pjbeam 5y ago
  Extremely uncommon outside of federal government related things. Maybe some other niche industries but definitely not the norm.
  - Ancapistani 5y ago
    I believe this is highly regional. Drug tests are extremely common in the South and Midwest, when applying for an in-person position at least. I’ve not had to get one since joining “the tech industry”, but my family members who are more traditionally employed all have them every time they switch jobs and are at least theoretically subject to random testing - including those working at the C-level of very large companies.

giantg2 5y ago

My company won't give references and won't even allow managers to give a reference. They also blacklist you, so when you do leave you won't be allowed to come back. If that's the way they play it, my plan if I get a new job is to simply ghost my current one.

traceroute66 5y ago
> My company won't give references and won't even allow managers to give a reference. Most sensible companies these days will only do one of the following: (a) Give no reference; or (b) Give a factual reference (i.e. dates employed, job role(s) and, erm... that's it). Providing more information, especially in non-US countries where employment and privacy law is on the side of the employee is only inviting the opening of cans of worms.
- giantg2 5y ago
  That's understandable, if that's the only thing. But that plus being blacklisted seems like the company isn't just concerned about employee privacy. Not to mention, even if the employee asks a manager for a letter of recommendation or reference, there would be no privacy concern and the company considers that a fireable offense for the manager if they give one. Seems like anticompetitive behavior to me.
- sumthinprofound 5y ago
  (b) was policy from HR at my last employer and I would always forward HR any reference I wrote for employees for review before sending to make sure it complied with their requirements. There was more flexibilty for reference letters written for summer interns but that was a more informal process.
technotarek 5y ago
My $0.02, something that has taken me a long time to accept: never burn bridges.
- giantg2 5y ago

refurb 5y ago

Not a lawyer (but did take a business law class!) and there is something known as promissory estoppel (likely the same detrimental reliance). No doubt I’m butchering how it works, but basically one can sue for “damages” incurred due to someone not following through on a promise or implied agreement. Contract not always required, just reasonable actions based on a reasonable expectation of someone following through. A good example might be a neighbor agreeing to build a fence if you purchase the wood. You buy it, they back out and you can’t return it. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estoppel https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estoppel

sys_64738 5y ago
Employment is at-will in the USA. They can fire you on day one no questions asked.
- literallyaduck 5y ago
  In a lot of States that is true, but not all. https://www.ncsl.org/research/labor-and-employment/at-will-employment-exceptions-by-state.aspx https://www.ncsl.org/research/labor-and-employment/at-will-e...
  - kube-system 5y ago
    Those are a list specific exemptions to at-will-employment; all of them follow at-will-employment other than those exemptions.
  - MrWiffles 5y ago
    Maybe it didn’t display because mobile, but could you or someone explain what each heading in that table means? I’ve never heard of ANY exception to at-will, and I’m in the process of figuring out which state I want to live in now that I’ve decided to leave Texas for good (long story). I’d like to have some idea of the employment protections, such as they are, available in other states and this looks like a great start-if I knew what each heading meant!
- LanceH 5y ago

sys_64738 5y ago

Geo would make this easier. It's in NY Mag which suggests USA but we don't have employment contracts in most at-will states.

abeppu 5y ago
I think employment contracts often exist but only lay out rules (agreement to use arbitration, assignment of IP, NDA, agreeing to not bring class action suits, ...) and explicitly lay out that employment is at-will. You can sign a large and complex document in which the prospective employee agrees to be bound by a bunch of restrictions but is not actually established as an employee.

giantg2 5y ago

I see a lot of people talking about signed contracts. It's not a bad suggestion, but might not be worth as much as one thinks (in at-will states). Most of these "contracts" are just one page documents saying the company makes the rules and can change them at any time with or without notice, that they can terminate or lay you off at any time for any reason (at-will states).

slackfan 5y ago

Ha, I narrowly avoided exactly this situation. Had an offer signed, then got jerked around in the background check process for a few weeks, and then finally got a "sorry, we found a more qualified candidate, so we're rescinding the offer". Must say I was glad that I grit my teeth and refused to put in my notice at my other job. The schadenfreude and relief at having dodged a massive bullet really kicked in when I found out who was the "more qualified candidate" eight months down the line at a local DevOps days.

xroche 5y ago
> more qualified candidate Also knows as "the candidate we can pay less"
- slackfan 5y ago
  Considering the pay that they were offering me was already pretty bottom-of-the-barrel for the local area, maybe, maybe not.

SkipperCat 5y ago

If a company asks you to resign you job and then conditionally offers you a job based upon your current manager's recommendation, that's a major red flag. Walk away. I would never put someone's employment in that type of limbo. To me, that just shows that the new employer does not value people. Employees are just object to be managed. Also, its hard in the US to get a legit work contract an an employee - its all "at will" labor. If you really a solid guarantee, become a 1099 contractor and get a contract for services, where there are the three main components - an offer of payment, an offer to supply labor and a signed agreement by both parties.

travisgriggs 5y ago

Of course the usually litany of “don’t leave your current job without securing the next one.” But to me, the real red flag of this story was the offer. That the hiring company had a policy like that, should have been a “thanks for the offer, but I think now’s not quite the right time, check back in the future” moment.

MrWiffles 5y ago
THIS. When you’re desperate to leave, I get that for sure, but you nailed it here because now the author’s even more desperate than she was before, unfortunately. Begging to get back a job you hate has got to be the worst… And yeah, people need to get better about making it clear that we have a right to screen for bad employers just as much as they screen for bad employees. Lack of social safety nets in the US makes this hard though, understandably. How can you say no in spite of red flags when you don’t have a way to pay rent due at the end of the week? There should be some kind of retaliation-impossible, big-money-and-censorship-immune-by-design employer review site out there for people to talk about this kind of stuff. I confess I don’t know how to insulate against those threat models while keeping the trash out and establishing/maintaining credibility… Ideas welcome! :-)

PragmaticPulp 5y ago

This candidate was lulled into violating one of the rules of interviewing: Never say anything bad about your current employer, manager, team, or company. > I simply told the HR person that my previous boss and I didn’t have a good relationship, and that I could not rely on her for a reference. If a company presses for a reference from your current employer and you don’t think it would help, simply decline. Most people can point to non-solicit clauses in their employment contracts that disallow employees from recruiting or facilitating employees from being hired away from the company. Whatever you do, don’t volunteer information that you were not in the good graces of your manager. That’s a warning sign that something might have been wrong or that the employee is problematic. Offer alternative references or give excuses that the reference isn’t allowed due to non-solicit. But don’t volunteer an implied negative reference on behalf of the person most recently familiar with your work performance. This specific story doesn’t entirely make sense, though. If the employee already quit their previous job and had an offer that was contingent upon a reference from the previous manager then it doesn’t make sense to continue to withhold the reference. Withholding the reference is the only 100% way to lose the job offer. They should have at least had a conversation with the previous manager and asked for a good reference for a non-zero chance that the manager would help them out. It doesn’t make sense to choose the only guaranteed option to lose the job offer.

cocoa19 5y ago
Even if you think the reference will help, I'd still decline. There's no reason to risk your current job until the new job is secured.
- deleted 5y ago
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- jareklupinski 5y ago
  yea, it seems very strange to have an offer contigent on your previous employer being amicable to letting you go...

christobell 5y ago

I'm sorry to hear about your situation. You should've double checked all of the things needed before you jumped in to the conclusion.

waylandsmithers 5y ago

Here's something tangentially related: how much information would you disclose about other companies you're interviewing with? Personally having just gone through a job search, I wanted to be transparent and when asked did tell companies that I was interviewing with a number of places- ok, totally reasonable. Then as things played out, I made it through the process with one company, while the rest said no after some misadventures in maximum binary tree depth. The one company that liked me, in good faith, asked about the interviews with other companies, so I just said "You're my top choice currently" not wanting to give some negative signal that I couldn't cut it with the others, but also not wanting to seem like I was just playing hardball.

OldHand2018 5y ago

So this person violated a few unwritten laws of job switching, but you have to have some compassion for her - she was in a terrible job and was looking for a way out. You'd make mistakes too.

gwbas1c 5y ago

> My previous boss had a personal vendetta against me and made my time working for her really difficult. Eventually, I was moved out from under her to a different team within the same department. So when asked, I simply told the HR person that my previous boss and I didn’t have a good relationship, and that I could not rely on her for a reference. IMO, I wouldn't consider this person "my previous boss" and just provide a reference from a previous employer. I wonder how long they worked together? Was it a few weeks, months, or years?

wonderwonder 5y ago

Most large companies I have worked for now have switched to a system of only confirming employees employment dates and providing no other information. Litigation cost has driven this move. Seems like a good one, your entire career could be torpedoed by one disagreeable manager otherwise. Interviews are there to ensure the candidate is a good skill / social fit. If the interview is not doing the job then you need to change your interview process.

BrandoElFollito 5y ago

As a French, this whole idea of references in the US blows my mind. How can you get a good reference from the employer you just left? There is this surrealist idea of work ethics where the employer would say that John was great and we don't mind he left us in the middle of a project. I was asked once by a US company for references, gave a few good friends who said that I was the next Elon Musk combined with Einstein, and probably Peace Nobel Prize winner. And that I had this terrible flaw of working my ass off for my company. I passed with flying colors I am glad that with everything wrong we have on France, at least we do not go through this madness.

mbg721 5y ago
I once worked for a company that prohibited anyone working there from providing employment references (out of a fear of exposing the company to legal liability). Yet when they were hiring, they still asked candidates for them, and treated it as a red flag if they couldn't get them. I thought that was awfully cheeky.