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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 y

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.

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.