Reference Checks Can Go Wrong

If you can't give a 100% positive reference, tell the person before they include you as a reference. Then when giving a reference, make sure it is 100% positive.

Google (and in fact, most companies) only want to hire candidates who appear flawless. To me, "appears flawless" is a red flag itself, but I think hiring committees see any potential negative as possibly the tip of a terrible iceberg. So even though we all want to be honest and provide nuanced feedback about what it was like to work with a person for years, when giving a reference you just need to censor all of that and pretend like they are the best person you ever worked with and the only downside is that you're not working together anymore (but you'd hire them back in a heartbeat).

It's like talking with a reporter or the police. Stop trying to be helpful to anyone but the people you already know. Strangers are not to be trusted with your inside information, about anything.

Wow, a single offhand comment could doom a candidate from ever being hired?

I wish the same high standard applied to companies interacting with candidates. I've had a Google engineer literally scream at me in an interview. I've also had their recruiters reach out to me for a role, schedule an interview that seemed to go well, then completely ghost me.

I do not judge a company that doesn't hire me, even if they don't give feedback - that is understandable given the legal climate in the states. But it is unacceptable to simply disappear, and actions have consequences.

(In my case, I do not take Google recruiter comms, along with any other company that engages in abusive behavior during the interview process)

This is an extremely fucked up process. Can it possibly still work this way at Google, where a reference collected years ago remains on file and a live part of qualification today?

To everyone else: talk to your references about what you want them to say! Don't just ask for a reference and leave it at that. Treat explicit reference checks like the formality that they are; you have no special obligation to present a super true, clear picture of your experience with your reference. Just make sure the reference gets you to "yes".

Serious reference checks usually aren't explicit (like, "give us a list of 3 people for references"), precisely because everyone with career skills knows to coach their references. In fact, because so many references are coached, negative feedback looks especially bad in them.

My favorite part of this story is that a major lesson this hiring manager learned from the process was to groom reference feedback for the offer committee, just further exposing what a farce explicit reference checks are in reality.

Hiring managers: the other big lesson here is, don't do things the way Google does them. It works for Google because there's so much cachet and stability associated with Google that they can afford to randomly turn down qualified applicants. You're unlikely to be in the same situation.

Many years ago, I was approached by a Google recruiter for a position. After a couple of phone screens and a brief onsite, I returned for a ~4 hour set of interviews. After the last interview, with someone who would have been my peer if hired, she starts asking me about my background: where I'm from, what I studied in college, and if I was Jewish (!?).

I believe she was Jewish and she said this in a fairly congenial way, but nonetheless I was somewhat shocked. I then thought "well gee, guess I'm going to get an offer". Nope -- more recruiter BS about headcount, whether they had the budget, etc. and the finally a "not a good fit at this time" call with no other feedback.

Their interview process is terrible for candidates and seems nearly designed to make the 90% of people they jerk around before saying no to believe all the stereotypes that Googlers are all self-entitled, aloof, 1%-ers. (I have a number of close friends @ Google, but geez the organization seems to practically revel in opportunities to make itself look bad and the hiring process makes it look sooo bad).

> Google was his number one choice, but he had to decide whether it was safe to reject the other offers he had. He started to press me more, “Jose, I need certainty. I need to know that I’m going to get this offer.” So I said, “Look, I’m sure you’re going to get the offer. My recommendation is that you wait.”

The candidate learned a very valuable lesson: Never believe any assurances that the recruiter gives you about how likely you are to get the job.

The candidate likely lost hundreds of thousands of dollars due to their believing the recruiter (going from being hired by large Silicon Valley companies, to finding a startup at the last minute).

Jose... wow.

Reading between the lines, he committed to this candidate that the candidate was getting an offer; the candidate declined other offers on that basis, and did not actually get that offer.

The candidate should have retained a lawyer.

For anyone reading this and starting their careers, just know everything a recruiter says is bullshit until the docusign lands in your inbox.

I feel like a truly ethical recruiter would never say say "I'm sure you're going to get the offer"; either the offer is ready to be given, in which case the recruiter should just give it, or it hasn't been decided yet, and there's no guarantee that an offer will end up being given.

Of course, there may not be a lot of demand for recruiters who would not be willing to tell a candidate that they're sure they'll get the offer beforehand...

My experience (as an applicant) was similar. Google, of course, has so many qualified applicants that oddities like this don't really matter much in terms of their final pool.

I do wonder, though, if they will eventually accumulate a reputation for this sort of thing that might harm them. For myself, I no longer respond to their emails either.

I haven't had a reference check in a long time. The last company that asked for them didn't even check them. Any hiring people out there feel that reference checks provide any meaningful insight?

Over here in Europe, your references generally don't say very much about you beyond confirming you did indeed work for that company and how long you actually worked there for.

This is to avoid issues like in the article, which can apparently leave the referee open to legal action if the candidate can say the bad reference cost them a job offer or something similar.

Is that different in the US? Do references usually mention the negatives about an applicant as well?

I don't necessarily think there's that much value in references, but this is more of a Google problem than a reference problem.