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This logic should also be applied to when past employees call for references. Never give a statement, refer the person calling to your corporate HR department.
by ChrisBland 12y ago
This logic should also be applied to when past employees call for references. Never give a statement, refer the person calling to your corporate HR department. Your company most likely has a policy for this, in addition if you say something you are not supposed to legally you could open yourself up to a heap of trouble. INAL but I've sat through enough corporate HR presentations to have this hammered home and hopefully can share this with startups who haven't had the benefit of an experienced HR team.
- vonmoltke 12y agoYet companies still ask for references from supervisors, even companies that have this very policy in place.
- derekp7 12y agoThat's because, as far as I know, a supervisor won't get in trouble for saying "Jim was the brightest employee I've ever had, which we could have kept him". And by referring the caller to HR, that is a closet way of giving a negative reference.
- Iftheshoefits 12y agoAnd if the former supervisor has an axe to grind his implicit negative reference doesn't mean much. Add to that the fact that employees carefully cultivate positive references and you have just one more reason why references are a poor indicator of basically anything.