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4. You are not fucking suppose to verify or reference check on me before I even had my interview or offer. So now my boss / management knows I am job hunting?

4. You are not fucking suppose to verify or reference check on me before I even had my interview or offer. So now my boss / management knows I am job hunting? Many years ago, I posted my resume on a job site to see what my options were. An enterprising recruiter called my current (at the time) workplace asking if they'd need help filling the position I might be leaving. To make his pitch, he asked to speak to the "hiring manager", which happened to be me. He quickly hung up.

danjoredd 4y ago
This is what terrifies me about leaving. My current job almost called the place I was working at to verify my employment, but I requested them to wait until the interviews were over, because my last boss was the kind of guy to fire people arbitrarily. Once he fired a guy for not working on his house...that employee was hired as help desk. Thankfully I passed all my interviews and they called him right after I was almost guaranteed to get the position. Took a few insults from the guy, but haven't heard anything from him since I left thankfully.
- number6 4y ago
  What stops your boss from lying to the company: danjoredd? Never heard of this guy. Never worked here and if he did, he would have done a lousy job. Glad I could help!
  - sidewndr46 4y ago
    Why would he need to lie? Couldn't he just tell the caller to stop wasting his time and hang up?
  - selectodude 4y ago
    The fact that it’s a slam dunk lawsuit for the plaintiff. https://www.justia.com/employment/defamation/ https://www.justia.com/employment/defamation/
    - bathtub365 4y ago
      Except you have to be willing to take someone to court over that.
      - ryandrake 4y ago
        Exactly, and you have to be willing to bear the time and expense of suing a corporation with more money and attorneys than you. Every time someone has a casual "Well, you can just sue them" answer to being wronged, they forget that the court system (at least in the US) is inaccessible unless you're rich and richer than your opponent. If my employer does something wrong to me, like wage theft, fraud, harassment, discrimination, it doesn't matter that I can sue them in theory. In practice, it's me and my $5,000 in life savings vs. 100 corporate attorneys working at a $N billion company who will inundate you with paperwork and motions and procedural tricks. Not to mention, if you sue them, they will fire you in retaliation (which is also probably illegal) and may even go so far as informally blacklisting you in your industry. So you're giving up your time, your life savings, likely going into debt, and giving up your future employability, just to pit your one already over-worked attorney vs. their army. Good luck.
        danjoredd 4y ago
        Thats why, even if I hate the company I work for, I always do my best to keep a good relationship with them. Thats not always possible of course, but having former coworkers being able to say good things about you helps take a lot of worry off my back.
        marcosdumay 4y ago
        The extent varies, but courts do see in a very bad light companies applying too many resources against people they clearly harmed. When those people are employees, the view gets worse. That doesn't mean that suing is easy or cheap, but only that things are way more balanced than your comment makes it look like.
        TheDesolate0 4y ago
  - danjoredd 4y ago
    I had other forms of proof that I worked there like paystubs. He could have lied, but it would not have worked. Now my performance? He could def lie about that. Thankfully my other past jobs could verify my hard work because I left with good relations, so if he lied it would have been an outlier. Reputation is important! It can be the difference between one company having complete control over your future, and being able to choose to do what you want.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - pevey 4y ago
      If he did lie about your performance, and if there were not documented examples of your performance to back up every single thing he said, that would also be grounds for an easy lawsuit. Tortious interference with employment. That's why most companies ask (beg) executives not to give any type of employment reference. They have a department or outside company who handles that by giving factual information only. Employed, yes or no, and dates. That's it. Even if you think you are giving a positive or "balanced" reference, something you say could spook the potential employer, and you could be sued for it.
      - workingdog 4y ago
        I work around people who are reluctant to give an honest appraisal because of the fear of legal repercussions by asking: "Would you hire this person again?" We get a 99% answer rate on that question.
        rootusrootus 4y ago
        To be honest, I'm surprised that question works. It's close enough to a real opinion that eventually someone will lose a defamation case on it and then legal will tell HR to stop answering it.
        SoftTalker 4y ago
- gavinray 4y ago
  Can't they just look at your company's Github and see you belong to their org + your commits to their repos?
  - Chico75 4y ago
    Doesn't apply to most companies
- tharkun__ 4y ago
  This is effed up. In my book, the company that you're interviewing with should never call your current employer. Call my ex-employers and references I provide all you want. But if you call my current employer, I will not work for you and I will deny ever having spoken to said other company if my boss asked me. It'd be a surefire way to make me stay at my current company (and keep interviewing in other places, because I probably do want to leave). Heck I don't even update my LinkedIn until a year or more after I move companies. I do update it way before I might want to jump ship again, just like the "Looking for work" flag. My current employer's HR department will get no direct signal that I'm actually looking if I can avoid it. I'd go as far as not using LinkedIn functionality to apply to something. For all I know LinkedIn provides a paid for service to my current employer that notifies them, that I'm interviewing.
  - codecutter 4y ago
    That's why I don't even use LinkedIn at all.
mihaaly 4y ago
I am shocked how dumb recruiters could be in many cases, typically at bigger organizations. Sometimes it feels like the human resurces department consists of algorithmic devices, it woud be more appropriate calling them robotic resources. Apart from this reference nonsense asked right in the first form - refused of course leading to exclusion by some automation immediately - I met with ability test of rapid finance related calculations - not enought time to complete all and only tests how good I am in finance tests having a non-relaistic idealistic scenario as a context - for an engineering position - which then "will be the baseline for promotion decisions" later. Refused to take the test, then I was refused too. All this after successful engineering interviews and conceptual agreement on particulars (salary, location of work, start date). Not remembering I got refused and calling me with the same kind of position in couple of weeks, greeting me with "you have experience that fits perfectly" just to offer me something require experience I don't have so obviously not reading the long forms they mandate to fill in down do the last dot, and similar clue and careless aproaches are what I experienced. There are dozen or (famous in their field) organizations I could discourage people from applying to due to the dumb procedures even on the most elementary level. Frightening what could go on there concerning organization and administrative tasks. All have very cutting edge approaches to forming a perfect work environment that they consider the utmost importance if you look at their career pages with explosively happy all young and dynamic and diverse and smart and pretty people. They are full of bulls..t and they know that (or hopelessly clueless which is equally frightening).
- marcosdumay 4y ago
  "Human resources" is the thing they manage. The department itself is an AI tasked with minimizing legal risks and employment costs.
- ww520 4y ago
  Once I had a recruiter asked me to sign a NDA before the interview. I laughed and said thanks but no thanks.
  - asoneth 4y ago
    As a data point, I give my interview candidates the option to sign an NDA. The only benefit is If they sign I can use customer names instead of generic descriptions (e.g. "large bank" or "telcom provider") and I can show product interfaces. Personally I thought an optional NDA strikes a good balance, but I've been surprised at how many candidates just sign NDAs automatically. We communicate that it otherwise has no bearing on their application but I suspect some believe that it'll increase their odds.
SoftTalker 4y ago
You're also not supposed to make up prior employment and experience, but many people do. So companies have started to do some due diligence on your background so that they don't waste time interviewing liars. </devils-advocate>
m463 4y ago
A friend of mine was looking at a job and wanted to use me as a reference. Eventually I got a call about my friend, and I discussed my friend and my experience working with him. But at some point the caller asked me about myself, and if I was interested in other positions. This turned out to be a recruiter (who was placing my friend), but he was not interested in my friend - he recruiting from the reference list. ugh.
- nick478016 4y ago
  That actually seems like a clever way to generate leads
  - more_corn 4y ago
    That’s a clever way to get me to block your number and add you to my list of people who need a kick in the pants.
    - mmmpop 4y ago
  - notch656a 4y ago
    Lol recruiters have all kind of tricks. I've been used by recruiters for positions that turned out that the recruiter knew I was horrible fit for, and I later realized I was being used as a guinea pig to discover the interview process for their favored candidates.
  - datavirtue 4y ago
    It's not clever. It's a scammy abuse of misplaced trust. Since when is lying a form of innovation?
kodah 4y ago
I once got a call from my mother, who lives in a different state, that someone was calling her looking for me. They'd called a number of times by this point. I returned the call and it turned out to be a recruiter who I had not responded to. The recruiter proceeded to use a lookup service which correlated my mothers phone number to me, which he then used to get in contact with me. I understand that finding people who do what I do is hard, but that scenario made me sick to my stomach.

danjoredd 4y ago

This is what terrifies me about leaving. My current job almost called the place I was working at to verify my employment, but I requested them to wait until the interviews were over, because my last boss was the kind of guy to fire people arbitrarily. Once he fired a guy for not working on his house...that employee was hired as help desk. Thankfully I passed all my interviews and they called him right after I was almost guaranteed to get the position. Took a few insults from the guy, but haven't heard anything from him since I left thankfully.

number6 4y ago
What stops your boss from lying to the company: danjoredd? Never heard of this guy. Never worked here and if he did, he would have done a lousy job. Glad I could help!
- sidewndr46 4y ago
  Why would he need to lie? Couldn't he just tell the caller to stop wasting his time and hang up?
- selectodude 4y ago
  The fact that it’s a slam dunk lawsuit for the plaintiff. https://www.justia.com/employment/defamation/ https://www.justia.com/employment/defamation/
  - bathtub365 4y ago
    Except you have to be willing to take someone to court over that.
    - ryandrake 4y ago
      Exactly, and you have to be willing to bear the time and expense of suing a corporation with more money and attorneys than you. Every time someone has a casual "Well, you can just sue them" answer to being wronged, they forget that the court system (at least in the US) is inaccessible unless you're rich and richer than your opponent. If my employer does something wrong to me, like wage theft, fraud, harassment, discrimination, it doesn't matter that I can sue them in theory. In practice, it's me and my $5,000 in life savings vs. 100 corporate attorneys working at a $N billion company who will inundate you with paperwork and motions and procedural tricks. Not to mention, if you sue them, they will fire you in retaliation (which is also probably illegal) and may even go so far as informally blacklisting you in your industry. So you're giving up your time, your life savings, likely going into debt, and giving up your future employability, just to pit your one already over-worked attorney vs. their army. Good luck.
      - danjoredd 4y ago
        Thats why, even if I hate the company I work for, I always do my best to keep a good relationship with them. Thats not always possible of course, but having former coworkers being able to say good things about you helps take a lot of worry off my back.
      - marcosdumay 4y ago
        The extent varies, but courts do see in a very bad light companies applying too many resources against people they clearly harmed. When those people are employees, the view gets worse. That doesn't mean that suing is easy or cheap, but only that things are way more balanced than your comment makes it look like.
        TheDesolate0 4y ago
- danjoredd 4y ago
  I had other forms of proof that I worked there like paystubs. He could have lied, but it would not have worked. Now my performance? He could def lie about that. Thankfully my other past jobs could verify my hard work because I left with good relations, so if he lied it would have been an outlier. Reputation is important! It can be the difference between one company having complete control over your future, and being able to choose to do what you want.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - pevey 4y ago
    If he did lie about your performance, and if there were not documented examples of your performance to back up every single thing he said, that would also be grounds for an easy lawsuit. Tortious interference with employment. That's why most companies ask (beg) executives not to give any type of employment reference. They have a department or outside company who handles that by giving factual information only. Employed, yes or no, and dates. That's it. Even if you think you are giving a positive or "balanced" reference, something you say could spook the potential employer, and you could be sued for it.
    - workingdog 4y ago
      I work around people who are reluctant to give an honest appraisal because of the fear of legal repercussions by asking: "Would you hire this person again?" We get a 99% answer rate on that question.
      - rootusrootus 4y ago
        To be honest, I'm surprised that question works. It's close enough to a real opinion that eventually someone will lose a defamation case on it and then legal will tell HR to stop answering it.
        SoftTalker 4y ago
gavinray 4y ago
Can't they just look at your company's Github and see you belong to their org + your commits to their repos?
- Chico75 4y ago
  Doesn't apply to most companies
tharkun__ 4y ago
This is effed up. In my book, the company that you're interviewing with should never call your current employer. Call my ex-employers and references I provide all you want. But if you call my current employer, I will not work for you and I will deny ever having spoken to said other company if my boss asked me. It'd be a surefire way to make me stay at my current company (and keep interviewing in other places, because I probably do want to leave). Heck I don't even update my LinkedIn until a year or more after I move companies. I do update it way before I might want to jump ship again, just like the "Looking for work" flag. My current employer's HR department will get no direct signal that I'm actually looking if I can avoid it. I'd go as far as not using LinkedIn functionality to apply to something. For all I know LinkedIn provides a paid for service to my current employer that notifies them, that I'm interviewing.
- codecutter 4y ago
  That's why I don't even use LinkedIn at all.

mihaaly 4y ago

I am shocked how dumb recruiters could be in many cases, typically at bigger organizations. Sometimes it feels like the human resurces department consists of algorithmic devices, it woud be more appropriate calling them robotic resources. Apart from this reference nonsense asked right in the first form - refused of course leading to exclusion by some automation immediately - I met with ability test of rapid finance related calculations - not enought time to complete all and only tests how good I am in finance tests having a non-relaistic idealistic scenario as a context - for an engineering position - which then "will be the baseline for promotion decisions" later. Refused to take the test, then I was refused too. All this after successful engineering interviews and conceptual agreement on particulars (salary, location of work, start date). Not remembering I got refused and calling me with the same kind of position in couple of weeks, greeting me with "you have experience that fits perfectly" just to offer me something require experience I don't have so obviously not reading the long forms they mandate to fill in down do the last dot, and similar clue and careless aproaches are what I experienced. There are dozen or (famous in their field) organizations I could discourage people from applying to due to the dumb procedures even on the most elementary level. Frightening what could go on there concerning organization and administrative tasks. All have very cutting edge approaches to forming a perfect work environment that they consider the utmost importance if you look at their career pages with explosively happy all young and dynamic and diverse and smart and pretty people. They are full of bulls..t and they know that (or hopelessly clueless which is equally frightening).

marcosdumay 4y ago
"Human resources" is the thing they manage. The department itself is an AI tasked with minimizing legal risks and employment costs.
ww520 4y ago
Once I had a recruiter asked me to sign a NDA before the interview. I laughed and said thanks but no thanks.
- asoneth 4y ago
  As a data point, I give my interview candidates the option to sign an NDA. The only benefit is If they sign I can use customer names instead of generic descriptions (e.g. "large bank" or "telcom provider") and I can show product interfaces. Personally I thought an optional NDA strikes a good balance, but I've been surprised at how many candidates just sign NDAs automatically. We communicate that it otherwise has no bearing on their application but I suspect some believe that it'll increase their odds.

SoftTalker 4y ago

You're also not supposed to make up prior employment and experience, but many people do. So companies have started to do some due diligence on your background so that they don't waste time interviewing liars. </devils-advocate>

m463 4y ago

A friend of mine was looking at a job and wanted to use me as a reference. Eventually I got a call about my friend, and I discussed my friend and my experience working with him. But at some point the caller asked me about myself, and if I was interested in other positions. This turned out to be a recruiter (who was placing my friend), but he was not interested in my friend - he recruiting from the reference list. ugh.

nick478016 4y ago
That actually seems like a clever way to generate leads
- more_corn 4y ago
  That’s a clever way to get me to block your number and add you to my list of people who need a kick in the pants.
  - mmmpop 4y ago
- notch656a 4y ago
  Lol recruiters have all kind of tricks. I've been used by recruiters for positions that turned out that the recruiter knew I was horrible fit for, and I later realized I was being used as a guinea pig to discover the interview process for their favored candidates.
- datavirtue 4y ago
  It's not clever. It's a scammy abuse of misplaced trust. Since when is lying a form of innovation?

kodah 4y ago

I once got a call from my mother, who lives in a different state, that someone was calling her looking for me. They'd called a number of times by this point. I returned the call and it turned out to be a recruiter who I had not responded to. The recruiter proceeded to use a lookup service which correlated my mothers phone number to me, which he then used to get in contact with me. I understand that finding people who do what I do is hard, but that scenario made me sick to my stomach.