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 s

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.