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Comment by crescentfresh | Hacker News Reader

The place I'm at now forbids employees from being references for past employees (or current employees discreetly seeking other employment). Is this normal?

It would have prevented "Jim" or anyone else at ACME Corp from being a reference to catfish-er, so requests for a reference from the company would have been denied right off the bat. That would have made it harder to spot the fake.

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I think this is standard procedure for many US companies; the employee (e.g. your manager) can't give professional references on behalf of the company, mostly because there is nothing for the company to gain. In fact it's loose-loose: You get the job, they loose an employee; you don't get the job, the company could become liable for all kinds of things (libel, lost earnings etc.)

However there is nothing stopping a private individual giving a personal reference even if that person happened to be your manager.

This has been my experience working for large US corporations in the UK.

Yes, it's mainly a legal/libel issue. The code is if they just verify someone worked there, it's usually bad (without saying they were bad). If they say they were great, they were great.

There's no code. If they say they were great, they were possibly great. There are so many reasons for a terse confirmation of employment. Foremost would be that you're talking to HR and they're following a fixed process. A process that exists for a reason: Even a positive review with good intentions could be framed as injurious to the candidate's prospects.

Who gives HR as a reference?

Who gives somebody who would only state their dates of employment as a reference? We must be talking about different things here.

Yes, all my references are colleagues. I have their cell / home numbers and emails and all that. The point of references (at least back when I would send resumes to people) is, "did so and so work with you at place and place?" "What kind of work did so and so do?" "How did you like working with so and so?" "What languages did so and so work with?" That sort of thing. I think you are talking employment verification.

One of my former bosses said he always told people calling about references that bad employees were great because he wanted them at his competitors.

Most of the large Fortune 500 companies use https://www.theworknumber.com for this. It’s owned by Equifax and they do Income and Employment verifications. And salary history was compromised because of this. [0]

[0] https://krebsonsecurity.com/2017/10/equifax-breach-fallout-y...

It is fairly standard. Most of the companies would only verify if someone worked between the two dates and what was the position to avoid lawsuits.

Standard in the US maybe, but I've never even heard of anything like this in the UK. I'm sure it happens, but I will eat my hat if it's fairly standard.

Most larger companies require references to at least be checked by HR. Employers have a duty of care to provide accurate references for their former employees. There's a non-trivial risk that a manager could provide a bad or indifferent reference simply because of a personal grudge, which the company could be held liable for.

http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKHL/1994/7.html

I've only had one company and 2 government jobs check my references in 25 years in the field (feds were checking for clearance, so required).

I call my references to see if they were contacted after I've been offered positions in the past it's amazing how little it happens.

I don't check references because I don't give a shit. You're either giving people that like you, or why would you be giving them at all. If you're still employed, calling that person's current job is a huge no-no (could cost them their employment).

What the fuck is so hard about just figuring out if you like someone and hiring them. Telling them fully what goals you expect them to achieve and giving them the tools to do the job. Then if they're not successful, letting them go.

Oh yeah, you'd have to be a good employee yourself and work for a good company to do that.

It is my policy in the UK, and is the one recommended by HR experts for liability reasons. HR bods describe it as a factual reference. It is most definitely a recent US import, and I am not sure about it's penetration.

John Smith worked here between x and x as a tea-boy.

Personally I would much rather someone gave me a factual reference in good time, than an in depth reference eventually. Normally it is also OK for a manager to give a personal reference, ie not on behalf of the company.

But this sounds like if Sue comes up to me and asks me to be a reference, I would have to turn her down.

I've never heard of anybody doing this. Sounds pretty messed up to me.

This was the policy when I worked at Rackspace circa 2001-2004, they would only confirm employment.

In the bay area, I often can't even confirm employment because the company has gone out of business, my manager was fired after I voluntarily left, etc...

Literally everything about this story raises the hairs on the back of my neck except for giving false contact info for a manager the recruiter knew by name - esp the, "trust your gut", stuff, which is basically saying:

  Embrace your implicit bias.

I have managers who I can't get in touch with, one of whom I've had to tell several recruiters, "This dude wouldn't take my calls when I worked for him, he pretty much just ignores everyone." In those cases, however, I do my best to do a LinkedIn connect and provide a company email.

  "Feel free to contact jackass@shittycompany.com and see if you have better luck than I do."

Just because you are (MAYBE) a manager who cares enough to give references, don't assume anyone else is. Many of my past managers are pissed that I bailed on them, because they were shitty managers, but I have 20y in the industry and in many cases that meant more than them.

It's a tough game to play when you don't want to be a manager, yourself.

There are companies that exist solely to verify employment history, i.e., if you leave Company X, Company Y will confirm your time of employment, titles, etc. to new employer Company Z.

Most companies like that seem like they are just there to provide a plausible cover for legal liability. I've had multiple jobs that had background checks where I gave them my [1...n] addresses over the past 5-10 years and the background check comes back with me only have lived at [n-1] address with no indication that the data I supplied didn't match up with what they verified. If those companies we're doing their job they would at least tell my prospectvie employer, their client, that what they could prove didn't match up with what I said

"Doing their job" - they are data aggregators and brokers, if the data doesn't exist because it was never reported to a third party, there's nothing they can do.

If the whole point is to find discrepancies between what the prospective employee tells you and what is reality, not highlighting differences between those two sets of data is an issue, even if because the people doing the background check just lack access.

The real reason most background checks happen are so that companies have someone to point the finger at when one of their employees breaks the law. If that wasn't the case then you wouldn't get into situations like background check companies reporting completely clear records when the government has a simple process to show you every sentence given to someone. They stick to third party companies because they are cheaper and don't trigger compliance regulations required by law.

They would go for the better, if slightly more expensive, data source in a heart beat if finding about criminal history was the actual goal

The (large) company I work for also has this policy. If a potential employer contacts the company, they will confirm dates of employment, but that's all. It's a liability thing.

For professional references, it's not unusual. The company needs to protect itself against what an employee might say when representing the company.

They cannot forbid a personal reference.

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