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"It's not unprofessional or unethical." In general it is unprofessional, unethical, and bad for the market. Do I really need to explain why putting another pe

"It's not unprofessional or unethical." In general it is unprofessional, unethical, and bad for the market. Do I really need to explain why putting another persons current job at risk in order to gain a small advantage for yourself is unethical and unprofessional? It is one thing if you have a team member or good friend who has worked with the candidate in the past and another entirely to go digging into somebodies working history to find old/current colleagues/managers to talk to.

SamReidHughes 11y ago
It's not any of those things and avoiding bad employees certainly is good for the market, it prevents wasteful expenditure. > Do I really need to explain why putting another persons current job at risk in order to gain a small advantage for yourself is unethical and unprofessional? To say you're putting somebody's current job at risk is completely hyperbolic. They've already accepted your offer, if they lose their job (how?) and you hire them, you aren't putting them at risk. (And what, you think a past coworker is going to contact an employee's current boss and tell him the employee's going to leave? Yeah right. It's implausible that that would happen in any particular case, not implausible that it happened nonzero times in the universe, but again, you're hiring them anyway. Unless it turns out they're horrible to work with, in which case, the employer and the employer's other employees avoided a lot of needless suffering.) > It is one thing if you have a team member or good friend who has worked with the candidate in the past and another entirely to go digging into somebodies working history to find old/current colleagues/managers to talk to. You've put a distinction here but you lack an explanation why one behavior is immoral or unethical. (Specifically for old colleagues/managers.) Yes, you do need to spell it out. Or you could just not bother because who cares.
- sheepmullet 11y ago
  "They've already accepted your offer" What makes you think the kind of reference checks the article is talking about happens after an offer has been made and accepted? In my experience these kind of reference checks happen well before an offer is made, and they are often run in parallel on the top few candidates. So the majority of people reference checked are not offered the role. "And what, you think a past coworker is going to contact an employee's current boss and tell him the employee's going to leave?" I've seen word get around plenty of times even without any backdoor reference checks going on. "avoiding bad employees certainly is good for the market" Except if you don't know the person you are talking to then how can you judge the accuracy of what they have to say when they provide a reference? Edit: In fact if they want to do it it should be stated as part of their application process. Then people who feel it is invasive and unethical can simply not apply for those jobs. And if they do a great job at weeding out bad apples then eventually it will become accepted practice.
  - SamReidHughes 11y ago
    > What makes you think the kind of reference checks the article is talking about happens after an offer has been made and accepted? It talks about checking the references given by the candidate in the same breath, there's a certain spatial locality there. Also whatever vagueness there is in the article does not open up the door for unqualified bitching. > Except if you don't know the person you are talking to then how can you judge the accuracy of what they have to say when they provide a reference? Using social skills.
    - michaelochurch 11y ago
      Using social skills. I am not the most socially skilled person in the world. On the field, I doubt I'm even 50th percentile. Probably 35th, to be honest. That said, judging from everything you've posted, you're a fucking poster boy for the Dunning-Kruger Effect. So... I lolt. Nice job. You got a chuckle and two-thirds out of me.
      - SamReidHughes 11y ago
        Actually, I'm quite aware that the output half of my "social skills" is horrible.
        throwawaymaroon 11y ago
        I can't tell if you're hostile towards Church or curious and introspective in his direction in such a way that comes off as too confident, certain disagreement. If that information helps.
- michaelochurch 11y ago
  To say you're putting somebody's current job at risk is completely hyperbolic. They've already accepted your offer, if they lose their job (how?) and you hire them, you aren't putting them at risk. Wait, you'd make a back-channel reference check after making a formal offer and having them accept? Either this is pointless (because you plan on keeping to the offer and therefore won't act on any information you acquire in the reference call) or you intend on rescinding the offer if you find something bad, in which case it's as dangerous to you as it is unethical. First, to rescind an offer over a back-channel reference is not just unethical, but it's the kind of thing that, if it gets out, will ruin your company's reputation and yours, personally. (Remember that he has a written offer letter and he can easily get written proof of your rescission. Rescind verbally and all he has to do is show up to work the first day with a video camera.) Turn someone down before the offer phase on a back-channel reference, and he'll probably never know what happened. Do it after you've made a written offer, and you've put your name (and that of your company) in serious danger. The only time a company can rescind an offer and keep its name intact is when there's a massive, published layoff: e.g. a plant closing. If word gets out that a company backs out of a formal offer on a reference check (you're supposed to check references before you make an offer) then it won't just have trouble hiring, but it will affect client relationships and internal morale. If someone like me is on the other end, I'll fucking make sure that it does. Try that shit ("I called someone and he didn't like you, so I'm rescinding the offer") on someone like me, and the only way you're getting out safe is to cut a year's salary not to have me destroy you. I'd call every press contact I have and I'd demolish you even if there was nothing to gain for me, for no other reason but this one: God works through people. Your colleagues would log into Valleywag and TechCrunch and see your face. Oh, and since rescinded offers suggest financial troubles and I'd be spreading rumors that similar things had happened to other people, it would raise doubt about your company and they'd fire you for making such a mess. Not wanting this to happen, you'd gladly cut a six-figure go-away check, and if you had this authority I'd begrudgingly let you out safely, but if you didn't, you'd be in for a very awkward conversation with your superiors about why they need to pay a year's salary for someone not to show up, just to cover up your mistake. You could be a little more slimy and a little more smart about it and, instead of rescinding the offer, hire a person but make his life miserable for 3 months, make sure he can't get anything done, and then fire him if he doesn't quit on his own. Then you're just committing to wasted effort and a bunch of demoralizing conversations with management about systematically fucking over this guy you just hired because you found out that someone didn't like him. Some of your lieutenants will play along and make it look like he failed and not you, and you could possibly get away with it, but others (i.e. anyone ethical) will be disgusted and lose respect for you. Plus, there's inherent risk of drama if you hire someone, never give that person a chance, and fire him 3 months later. Also, if word gets out that you set a new hire up to fail based on a back-channel reference (an unreliable source of information in any case) then the same bad things will happen to you (and your company) as if you'd rescinded the offer: you'll get a deserved terrible reputation. See, people get fired or turned down for all sorts of unjust reasons and there's so much uncertainty (as with any other breakup, you'll never know who was really at fault) that a TechCrunch or Valleywag would never stoop to post details unless it was CEO-level. That's just regular corporate politics; shit happens, people dust themselves off and walk away from it. On the other hand, if you make a written offer and then rescind it, even if it's a junior engineer, it can find its way to Valleywag (and if someone like me is around to make sure that the right things happen, it probably will unless you pay for it). A bad negotiator might let you off for $10k, but if you try that on someone like me, you're going down for 10-20 times that. And I'm going to make you give up the name of the person giving the bad back-channel and I'm going to hit him personally for whatever I think it's worth to him not to have his employer know that a certain rogue was out speaking on their behalf. (People who give bad references will often pay not to have their more risk-averse employers know that they were out, without permission, speaking for their companies in ways that exposed all parties to lawsuits.) So, whoever you called is not going to like you much. Even if I don't need the money, and even if there's no money to be made (no blood from a stone) I will fuck up your shit, because (again, say it with me) God works through people. I may be vicious, but if there weren't people like me to clean up after, beat down, and sometimes annihilate the people like you who'd otherwise defecate on the entire world, the whole fucking planet would be 25 feet buried under the shit of people like you. And what, you think a past coworker is going to contact an employee's current boss and tell him the employee's going to leave? Yeah right. It's implausible that that would happen in any particular case, not implausible that it happened nonzero times in the universe, but again, you're hiring them anyway. Unless it turns out they're horrible to work with, in which case, the employer and the employer's other employees avoided a lot of needless suffering.) First of all, this brand of justice carries with it a presumed guilt that is not intellectually defensible. You're saying that if someone gets a bad back-channel reference, they deserve to have their current job put at risk by you simply because they're bad people... and they're bad people because your one unreliable source of information said they are. You're like the twitchy guy who lives in his mother's basement, cries when he masturbates, has a paralyzing fear of AA batteries, and flays prostitutes (or women who, to him, just look the part) to death, but thinks it's OK "because they're whores". You're just a sloppy asshole who doesn't give a shit about what effect he has on other people. That's all there is to it. You don't care if your sloppiness costs someone else his job or if you ruin someone else's career because, well, he's not you. Word, when put in the wrong place, does fucking get around. If you call someone who's not expecting a call for a reference, you're basically publishing that the person is job searching. It's not that people are malicious or gossipy. (Most people aren't malignant pieces of shit. This might surprise you, but it's true.) It's that once something is presumed to be public knowledge, no one bothers to hide it and it becomes public. Even if your back channel reference isn't obviously connected to the target's current employer, people at his company will find out in a matter of days. It almost always happens that way. Or you could just not bother because who cares. "Who cares" sums up your attitude toward people who are not you, and if you don't see why this is a problem, then I don't know what to say. It's sloppy assholes who don't give a fuck about their effects on other people who are giving Silicon Valley and the tech industry the rotten reputation that it is increasingly deserving. Frankly, I think much of the anti-tech backlash is misplaced (I don't think "Google buses" are, fundamentally, a bad thing) but this "it's not wrong if it doesn't hurt me" attitude is exactly what is making the rest of the world hate the tech industry, and we really need to get past this juvenile culture of ethical sloppiness, and start taking responsibility for our effects on the world. I don't know you and have no wish to know you, but I see that you aren't up to the task, so maybe you should make a policy of ensuring that you never have any effect on other people... before you fuck something up in a way that hurts a lot of people who don't deserve it.
- michaelochurch 11y ago
  My previous reply got killed so I'm just going to say this. Rescinding an offer based on a back-channel reference is not just unethical, but it's dangerous to your legal position and your reputation. If you pass on a candidate (before the offer stage) based on a back-channel reference, then you're being unethical but you probably won't get caught, because people rarely probe (or are even able to do so) into why someone pased. If you actually rescind an offer over a bad reference... you'll have to cut a sizable hush fee to come out safe. That said, I can't tell at this point if your fascist schtick is trolling or serious, but it's disturbing either way.
  - throwawaymaroon 11y ago
    I don't think Sam understands what makes his thinking appear fascist to you; Sam's logic seems to run along the lines of idealistic loyalty to the truth. He seems to think that a bad reference often happens for a reason, and it's a lie to try to obscure those legitimate reasons. The truth of someone's prior poor performance is the truth, right? Can't stop people from sharing the truth, right? It's naivete, not fascism. "Anything can lead to a lawsuit," he says, dismissing with a handwave the entire understanding of Mutually Assured Destruction you're attempting to bring to the conversation, complete with egoistic power tripping (if God works through people, so does the Devil, my friend). I also see a youthful lack of humility in Sam. Someone who hasn't stumbled enough to know why it's in business culture's interest to be forgiving and forgetful. Someone who doesn't understand that you really only ever see a small part of someone's life at work, and all of the factors that affect a 'performance' you can't even evaluate objectively anyway. It's far better for companies to accept that firings will happen and it's not worth assigning anything more than basic blame than it is to make sure that information about job performance follows people around perfectly.

SamReidHughes 11y ago

It's not any of those things and avoiding bad employees certainly is good for the market, it prevents wasteful expenditure. > Do I really need to explain why putting another persons current job at risk in order to gain a small advantage for yourself is unethical and unprofessional? To say you're putting somebody's current job at risk is completely hyperbolic. They've already accepted your offer, if they lose their job (how?) and you hire them, you aren't putting them at risk. (And what, you think a past coworker is going to contact an employee's current boss and tell him the employee's going to leave? Yeah right. It's implausible that that would happen in any particular case, not implausible that it happened nonzero times in the universe, but again, you're hiring them anyway. Unless it turns out they're horrible to work with, in which case, the employer and the employer's other employees avoided a lot of needless suffering.) > It is one thing if you have a team member or good friend who has worked with the candidate in the past and another entirely to go digging into somebodies working history to find old/current colleagues/managers to talk to. You've put a distinction here but you lack an explanation why one behavior is immoral or unethical. (Specifically for old colleagues/managers.) Yes, you do need to spell it out. Or you could just not bother because who cares.

sheepmullet 11y ago
"They've already accepted your offer" What makes you think the kind of reference checks the article is talking about happens after an offer has been made and accepted? In my experience these kind of reference checks happen well before an offer is made, and they are often run in parallel on the top few candidates. So the majority of people reference checked are not offered the role. "And what, you think a past coworker is going to contact an employee's current boss and tell him the employee's going to leave?" I've seen word get around plenty of times even without any backdoor reference checks going on. "avoiding bad employees certainly is good for the market" Except if you don't know the person you are talking to then how can you judge the accuracy of what they have to say when they provide a reference? Edit: In fact if they want to do it it should be stated as part of their application process. Then people who feel it is invasive and unethical can simply not apply for those jobs. And if they do a great job at weeding out bad apples then eventually it will become accepted practice.
- SamReidHughes 11y ago
  > What makes you think the kind of reference checks the article is talking about happens after an offer has been made and accepted? It talks about checking the references given by the candidate in the same breath, there's a certain spatial locality there. Also whatever vagueness there is in the article does not open up the door for unqualified bitching. > Except if you don't know the person you are talking to then how can you judge the accuracy of what they have to say when they provide a reference? Using social skills.
  - michaelochurch 11y ago
    Using social skills. I am not the most socially skilled person in the world. On the field, I doubt I'm even 50th percentile. Probably 35th, to be honest. That said, judging from everything you've posted, you're a fucking poster boy for the Dunning-Kruger Effect. So... I lolt. Nice job. You got a chuckle and two-thirds out of me.
    - SamReidHughes 11y ago
      Actually, I'm quite aware that the output half of my "social skills" is horrible.
      - throwawaymaroon 11y ago
        I can't tell if you're hostile towards Church or curious and introspective in his direction in such a way that comes off as too confident, certain disagreement. If that information helps.
michaelochurch 11y ago
To say you're putting somebody's current job at risk is completely hyperbolic. They've already accepted your offer, if they lose their job (how?) and you hire them, you aren't putting them at risk. Wait, you'd make a back-channel reference check after making a formal offer and having them accept? Either this is pointless (because you plan on keeping to the offer and therefore won't act on any information you acquire in the reference call) or you intend on rescinding the offer if you find something bad, in which case it's as dangerous to you as it is unethical. First, to rescind an offer over a back-channel reference is not just unethical, but it's the kind of thing that, if it gets out, will ruin your company's reputation and yours, personally. (Remember that he has a written offer letter and he can easily get written proof of your rescission. Rescind verbally and all he has to do is show up to work the first day with a video camera.) Turn someone down before the offer phase on a back-channel reference, and he'll probably never know what happened. Do it after you've made a written offer, and you've put your name (and that of your company) in serious danger. The only time a company can rescind an offer and keep its name intact is when there's a massive, published layoff: e.g. a plant closing. If word gets out that a company backs out of a formal offer on a reference check (you're supposed to check references before you make an offer) then it won't just have trouble hiring, but it will affect client relationships and internal morale. If someone like me is on the other end, I'll fucking make sure that it does. Try that shit ("I called someone and he didn't like you, so I'm rescinding the offer") on someone like me, and the only way you're getting out safe is to cut a year's salary not to have me destroy you. I'd call every press contact I have and I'd demolish you even if there was nothing to gain for me, for no other reason but this one: God works through people. Your colleagues would log into Valleywag and TechCrunch and see your face. Oh, and since rescinded offers suggest financial troubles and I'd be spreading rumors that similar things had happened to other people, it would raise doubt about your company and they'd fire you for making such a mess. Not wanting this to happen, you'd gladly cut a six-figure go-away check, and if you had this authority I'd begrudgingly let you out safely, but if you didn't, you'd be in for a very awkward conversation with your superiors about why they need to pay a year's salary for someone not to show up, just to cover up your mistake. You could be a little more slimy and a little more smart about it and, instead of rescinding the offer, hire a person but make his life miserable for 3 months, make sure he can't get anything done, and then fire him if he doesn't quit on his own. Then you're just committing to wasted effort and a bunch of demoralizing conversations with management about systematically fucking over this guy you just hired because you found out that someone didn't like him. Some of your lieutenants will play along and make it look like he failed and not you, and you could possibly get away with it, but others (i.e. anyone ethical) will be disgusted and lose respect for you. Plus, there's inherent risk of drama if you hire someone, never give that person a chance, and fire him 3 months later. Also, if word gets out that you set a new hire up to fail based on a back-channel reference (an unreliable source of information in any case) then the same bad things will happen to you (and your company) as if you'd rescinded the offer: you'll get a deserved terrible reputation. See, people get fired or turned down for all sorts of unjust reasons and there's so much uncertainty (as with any other breakup, you'll never know who was really at fault) that a TechCrunch or Valleywag would never stoop to post details unless it was CEO-level. That's just regular corporate politics; shit happens, people dust themselves off and walk away from it. On the other hand, if you make a written offer and then rescind it, even if it's a junior engineer, it can find its way to Valleywag (and if someone like me is around to make sure that the right things happen, it probably will unless you pay for it). A bad negotiator might let you off for $10k, but if you try that on someone like me, you're going down for 10-20 times that. And I'm going to make you give up the name of the person giving the bad back-channel and I'm going to hit him personally for whatever I think it's worth to him not to have his employer know that a certain rogue was out speaking on their behalf. (People who give bad references will often pay not to have their more risk-averse employers know that they were out, without permission, speaking for their companies in ways that exposed all parties to lawsuits.) So, whoever you called is not going to like you much. Even if I don't need the money, and even if there's no money to be made (no blood from a stone) I will fuck up your shit, because (again, say it with me) God works through people. I may be vicious, but if there weren't people like me to clean up after, beat down, and sometimes annihilate the people like you who'd otherwise defecate on the entire world, the whole fucking planet would be 25 feet buried under the shit of people like you. And what, you think a past coworker is going to contact an employee's current boss and tell him the employee's going to leave? Yeah right. It's implausible that that would happen in any particular case, not implausible that it happened nonzero times in the universe, but again, you're hiring them anyway. Unless it turns out they're horrible to work with, in which case, the employer and the employer's other employees avoided a lot of needless suffering.) First of all, this brand of justice carries with it a presumed guilt that is not intellectually defensible. You're saying that if someone gets a bad back-channel reference, they deserve to have their current job put at risk by you simply because they're bad people... and they're bad people because your one unreliable source of information said they are. You're like the twitchy guy who lives in his mother's basement, cries when he masturbates, has a paralyzing fear of AA batteries, and flays prostitutes (or women who, to him, just look the part) to death, but thinks it's OK "because they're whores". You're just a sloppy asshole who doesn't give a shit about what effect he has on other people. That's all there is to it. You don't care if your sloppiness costs someone else his job or if you ruin someone else's career because, well, he's not you. Word, when put in the wrong place, does fucking get around. If you call someone who's not expecting a call for a reference, you're basically publishing that the person is job searching. It's not that people are malicious or gossipy. (Most people aren't malignant pieces of shit. This might surprise you, but it's true.) It's that once something is presumed to be public knowledge, no one bothers to hide it and it becomes public. Even if your back channel reference isn't obviously connected to the target's current employer, people at his company will find out in a matter of days. It almost always happens that way. Or you could just not bother because who cares. "Who cares" sums up your attitude toward people who are not you, and if you don't see why this is a problem, then I don't know what to say. It's sloppy assholes who don't give a fuck about their effects on other people who are giving Silicon Valley and the tech industry the rotten reputation that it is increasingly deserving. Frankly, I think much of the anti-tech backlash is misplaced (I don't think "Google buses" are, fundamentally, a bad thing) but this "it's not wrong if it doesn't hurt me" attitude is exactly what is making the rest of the world hate the tech industry, and we really need to get past this juvenile culture of ethical sloppiness, and start taking responsibility for our effects on the world. I don't know you and have no wish to know you, but I see that you aren't up to the task, so maybe you should make a policy of ensuring that you never have any effect on other people... before you fuck something up in a way that hurts a lot of people who don't deserve it.
michaelochurch 11y ago
My previous reply got killed so I'm just going to say this. Rescinding an offer based on a back-channel reference is not just unethical, but it's dangerous to your legal position and your reputation. If you pass on a candidate (before the offer stage) based on a back-channel reference, then you're being unethical but you probably won't get caught, because people rarely probe (or are even able to do so) into why someone pased. If you actually rescind an offer over a bad reference... you'll have to cut a sizable hush fee to come out safe. That said, I can't tell at this point if your fascist schtick is trolling or serious, but it's disturbing either way.
- throwawaymaroon 11y ago
  I don't think Sam understands what makes his thinking appear fascist to you; Sam's logic seems to run along the lines of idealistic loyalty to the truth. He seems to think that a bad reference often happens for a reason, and it's a lie to try to obscure those legitimate reasons. The truth of someone's prior poor performance is the truth, right? Can't stop people from sharing the truth, right? It's naivete, not fascism. "Anything can lead to a lawsuit," he says, dismissing with a handwave the entire understanding of Mutually Assured Destruction you're attempting to bring to the conversation, complete with egoistic power tripping (if God works through people, so does the Devil, my friend). I also see a youthful lack of humility in Sam. Someone who hasn't stumbled enough to know why it's in business culture's interest to be forgiving and forgetful. Someone who doesn't understand that you really only ever see a small part of someone's life at work, and all of the factors that affect a 'performance' you can't even evaluate objectively anyway. It's far better for companies to accept that firings will happen and it's not worth assigning anything more than basic blame than it is to make sure that information about job performance follows people around perfectly.