How do employers deal with bad references?

If parting with one of the former bosses did not go completely smoothly or there were major conflicts, then when looking for a new job, fear gnaws: “What if they start collecting information about me from my old jobs?” Should applicants be afraid of unflattering reviews? And do recruiters believe in bad referrals? Here are some way how do employers deal with bad references.  

When asked for a recommendation

Recruiters can have many reasons to ask you for the contacts of executives who are willing to vouch for a job candidate. The most common are doubts, traditions, and security requirements for specialists in certain fields.

If a recruiter has several applicants for the same position, he will try to find out more about each of them in order to make a final decision. An ambiguous impression from an interview with you is also a reason to call your previous boss.

I rarely check references — only when I have some doubts. I usually find out everything I need during an interview with a candidate. In addition to talking about professional skills, I conduct interviews about values ​​- I correlate a person’s value system with what is important in people for a particular company. Thanks to experience, I trust my “internal barometer” more than the assessments of other leaders. But I do take reviews into account.

Elena Londar, HR Brand Award consultant, HeadHunter

Verification occurs in two scenarios . If this is a top-level position or work related to finances and important documents, banking or other special areas, then the company’s security service will most likely collect information about the candidate. Moreover, information will be collected through all possible channels.

In simpler cases, the recruiter will limit himself to asking the candidate himself for the contacts of previous employers, but even then it is not a fact that he will call them up.

It is impossible to evaluate all candidates according to the same criteria. For example, a lot of important information passes through accountants, they have great opportunities. Therefore, it is important to find out if a person has a tendency to do some illegal actions. This is checked by the security service. Candidates for ordinary positions are checked by the personnel service, and the requirements for them are much softer. We don’t always collect recommendations. We try to pay more attention to our own impressions. At the same time, experience shows that candidates with complex characteristics have a lot of negative reviews.

Before writing on your resume or naming contacts of former employers for reference at an interview, first contact these people and ask their permission. Firstly, according to the law, it is impossible to transfer personal data of other persons to anyone (and last name, first name, patronymic, phone number and other contact information are personal data) without their consent. Secondly, it is a rule of good form.

“We collect information only with the consent of the candidate. We ask him for the names and phone numbers of those people who may be his recommenders. Here the candidate must act wisely – you should first call those whose contacts he gives. You need to warn previous managers that they will be called about the recommendation. And ask them to describe your work,” advises Mark Levin.

By law, information about you can only be collected with your consent. But in life, everything is a little different: if at the interview you were not asked for contacts for recommendations and consent to verify information about you, this does not mean that there will be no verification. Recruiters have their own narrow professional circle of contacts, and nothing prevents them from exchanging opinions about certain candidates in an informal manner.

Also read : How to enhance your previous experience?

Do they believe the only bad recommendation?

It depends on the level of the position and experience of the recruiter. An experienced HR specialist will not rely on one opinion and will try to collect alternative estimates, listen to his own impression of communicating with the applicant and weigh the risks and benefits – in a word, evaluate the whole picture. Everyone understands that bad reviews have reasons that are not always objective – there is personal dislike. By the way, a bad review sometimes “flies” from where it is not expected at all.

Elena Londar recalled such a case: “I was looking for a recruiter for a bank. The girl I interviewed had previously worked for a private consulting company. She said that there was a wonderful leader who would be happy to give feedback on her work. I usually don’t ask for references, but the girl spoke so well about her previous employer that for some reason I decided to call him. There was a choice between two candidates, and in both cases there was something to think about – I wanted to decide.

When I called the former manager of this candidate, he criticized her so much! He called it irresponsible and infantile, although he could not give specific examples. I was surprised that the girl was sure of a good recommendation, but in fact received such a bad review.

Despite the unflattering recommendation, Elena trusted her own intuition and accepted that candidate for the job. And she didn’t regret it at all.

“I worked very well with her for several years. She turned out to be a strong recruiter – she simultaneously led 50 positions of different levels. It’s a difficult task, but she did a great job. I’m glad I made the right choice then. And if I had listened to her former leader, I would have lost a good employee, – says Elena. – Later, I warned a colleague that you should not give contacts of that ex-leader for recommendations. I did not discuss with her how her work was characterized, I just made it clear that the review from there would not be in her favor.

Unfortunately, stories with a subjective unflattering review do not always end with a “happy ending”.

“Somehow I picked up a candidate for the position of financial director. She successfully passed the first two stages of the interview. But after checking by the security service, a refusal came: they called the previous manager, and he spoke negatively about the former employee, ”says Mark Levin. – When I began to figure out what was the matter, it turned out that the candidate had a personal relationship with that leader. But the security service was no longer interested in these details – when it comes to leadership positions, any negative feedback can play a decisive role.

This is one of the reasons why career counselors often advise against crossing the line of a pure office relationship with colleagues. Not only novels, but also close friendships can one day turn into personal insults and personal scores, and you will have to pay with your career.

Recommendations are not checked for every position. And the information that the employer will look for also differs for candidates from different fields. For example, they usually find out about an applicant with a working profession, whether a person is prone to absenteeism, whether he observes safety precautions and labor discipline. For candidates for leadership positions, feedback on loyalty to the interests of the company, character stock, and ability to get along with people is important.

What to do if you are expecting a bad review?

Clearly, the best way to avoid bad reviews is to do your job well and not make enemies. That is, to behave politely and tolerantly with colleagues, not to participate in intrigues, to avoid conflicts, and have decided to quit, to leave gracefully, without burning bridges. But in real life, this is not always the case.

What if you have reason to expect a bad recommendation from one of your previous employers? If your case is just one of those when applicants are usually meticulously checked (you get a job at a bank, apply for a top position, and so on), it’s better to honestly warn the recruiter about your “skeleton in the closet”. Most likely, he will show up anyway, but your frankness will be a plus for you. In addition, it will matter how you explain the reasons why you expect bad recommendations.

If you really “chopped wood” and the former boss has objective reasons to speak about you not in the best way, then make it clear that you realized the mistake and revised the approach to work. Everyone makes mistakes, but not everyone draws the right conclusions, and the latter is a valuable quality.

If you are afraid of a bad review solely because of a personal conflict, try to talk about it as calmly as possible, without unnecessary emotions and “pouring mud” on your opponent. This in itself will introduce you to the best side.

It is worth talking about your concerns towards the end of the interview or when the recruiter himself asks you for contacts for recall from previous jobs, or asks about the reasons for dismissal.

No blackmail or fake reviews

The era when paper letters of recommendation mattered is long gone. Even if you bring a bunch of such letters, they are unlikely to convince a recruiter more than one direct appeal to one of your former employers.

However, there are still stories when applicants try to cover up a problematic breakup with a well written recommendation, not realizing that this will backfire.

“The company I worked for completed the project and was unable to offer the employee a new task,” says Elena Londar. “We peacefully discussed the situation with him, and the employee said that he would leave of his own free will. We agreed on the amount of payments, and he received all the money on time. Shortly before his dismissal, he asked for a written recommendation, and as soon as he received it, he came to the company with a lawyer. He said that he would not quit and demanded a “golden parachute”. As a result, we parted by agreement of the parties, but the sediment remained very unpleasant.

After that, potential employers called me twice to ask about him. I honestly answered that there were no complaints about the quality of work, but we did not part very well: despite the agreements, the person behaved ugly and began to dictate his terms.

Blackmail attempts give the same opposite effect when a person is fired for a cause, and he demands to formalize the separation by agreement of the parties and give him a good recommendation, otherwise threatening to tell about any violations in the company “where it should be”. Checking the reality of a written recommendation is now not difficult.