Honestly, I'm starting to see that my company is doing a lot of shady employment things. I guess most companies do.
By the way in Germany employers are legally obliged to provide a reference (Arbeitszeugnis). Most of them that I have seen were too positive and sometimes obviously exaggerated.
In Germany this has turned into a legal climate where only positive reviews are granted, creating a set of tiered shaded meanings inside positive reviews that stand in for ‘unacceptable’ to ‘brilliant’.
At any rate, changing one part of the system, e.g. forcing referrals as in Germany would no doubt change other ways the system works in the US as well.
Of course, doesn't mean you don't check in with folks you know who have worked with the person at your company and elsewhere.
As far as non-competes, the interesting thing there is I mostly work in science/programming where these are seen as jokes. "Why I can't make a living with this non-compete, non-enforceable" (exception is when they PAY you to not work, which is how it should be). So non-competes are seen as toothless. However I was hanging out with salespeople and they were 100% like "bro, these are no joke, I am banned from talking to my old clients for 1 year, they ARE totally enforceable in sales". And of course if you're starting a new sales job at some competitor, that's a bad look if your hiring arrives alongside a lawsuit, so these guys are properly afraid of non-compete scenarios
It doesn't have to be the boss; it could be a co-worker. Generally written, it is hard to get, but almost always available with a phone call after hours.
Asking the person, "Would you rehire this person?" or "Would you like to work with this person?" has a 95% answer rate and says everything.
If the prospect can't connect you with a phone call to one of their co-workers, that tells us what we need to know.
In the US at the corporate level, this would be extremely unusual.
Not to mention how is it even useful? It's the easiest thing in the world to fake by passing along the phone number of a friend claiming to be a co-worker and full of effusive praise for you. It's not like most companies list the phone numbers of their employees somewhere publicly that you could verify.
Decades ago when I was a bartender, it was common practice for your "reference" to be a buddy who would pretend to be the manager at your last restaurant.
There’s a great clip of an Aussie radio show doing a prank like this. They call a random guy up and pretend that they have his number as a reference, and that he’s gonna get a call from some potential employer (who are considering g higher if the prankster). The random guy immediately agrees to say only great things about him and then the actual “reference call” is actually well done.
https://twistedsifter.com/videos/hamish-and-andy-random-job-...
I don't know of any company in the UK that would ever answer such a question, maybe a small shop that hasn't learnt better yet. Companies will provide references that always just say "this person has worked here for X years", no one would ever say anything either positive or negative.
Companies stopped doing these sorts of things because companies got sued. It is very easy to bring a lawsuit, And while it is, perhaps not very easy to win it, someone still can easily have six figures in defending themselves.
If you don’t like that, OK, I don’t either, it is awful. But it is a rational response to a problem that happens.
Oh I understand it. But do you see the big picture here? People should be sueing for them not writing the letter. The NLRB should be taking cases for this as well. This is almost as anticompetitive as non-competes.
Edit: shouldn't have said for not writing the letter, just for a policy forbidding the writing of letters.
This gets awfully close to compelled speech. The only way this could be done is if we remove the right for employees to sue in respect of the content of the letter, which in turn opens up avenues for retaliation.
Written recommendations are bullshit. The ban should be on requesting them.
A ban on requesting them would also work.
That is what my former manager told me when I left my previous employer. He thought highly of my skills, but couldn't write me a letter due to company policy motivated by these concerns about being sued.
Edit: and remember, this is to file a suit, not win a defamation suit, which can be difficult. However it is very expensive for an employer to defend itself, easily tens of thousands if not six figures of dollars. How the game is played is a disgruntled ex-employee files a suit and then tries to settle for low tens of thousands of dollars, a portion of which goes to the employment attorney they hired.
The first amendment is widely interpreted to mean that you can't compel speech. Requiring a company to write recommendation letters would be compelling speech. That would be unconstitutional.
(And it doesn't matter if an individual manager would like to write a letter of recommendation but corporate policy is against it. The manager is paid by the company, would be sharing company information, and is an agent of the company in this regard.)
It would, but that's not what's being discussed.
The accusation is that the companies are restricting speech by saying that managers cannot provide a reference, even if they clearly state in said reference that the views are their own and not that of their employer. Nobody is trying to compel anyone else to provide a reference, the idea is that nobody should be prohibited from it, especially since for long term employees leaving on good terms their manager(s) is/are probably one of their best references.
A manager's evaluation of another employee's performance is internal company information. There's no reason that a company should be compelled to share that information externally.
It doesn't matter if the manager wants to share it, any more than the manager wants to share all the source code the employee has written.
Companies are allowed to determine what gets shared by their current employees, end of story. On the other hand, it is unconstitutional for the government to override that.
There are exceptions for things like public companies that are compelled to release certain data on a quarterly basis in exchange for the benefits of being publicly traded. And plenty of information can be compelled to be shared privately with the government, whether taxes or for health inspections or whatever.
But absolutely not forcing companies to allow their employees to talk publicly about other employees' performance.
This is trivial to solve: both former employer and employee sign the letter, declaring that information in it is full, correct and they have no objections. It would be much harder to sue if you previously agreed that the letter is ok for you.
when you have current employees talking about former employees on behalf of the company, that is the same thing as the company talking about them.
I don't see it as the same as the company speaking. Things like concerted efforts by the workers to make conditions better are protected and not considered company speech. I guess it's only because they're managers that they don't qualify.
Well, now even the omission/refusal to write such a letter might get you sued. A policy that says our managers just don't write such letters is absolutely the safest. 1) the company and its managers don't identify in any way their thoughts on performance in a way that might be found prejudicial; 2) they avoid the risk of a poorly worded recommendation that could be called prejudicial; 3) they avoid having to monitor the standards and risks of such statements across possibly many managers that might write such letters absent such a rule.
Some employers still answer a binary question "Eligible to re-hire? Yes/no" and that tells a lot in one bit of information. Of course some employers are vindictive and they just say no out of spite. Others will not answer anything except confirm dates of employment. Or they provide a good reference on a bad employee just so they leave without having to fire them.
Corporations that have this policy always tell you that when you check on a prospective employee. “ Our policy is only to give dates of employment and X worked here from…”
It is not a negative when you check on somebody and hear that. I’ve heard it many times. I can hardly take it as a sign of a bad employee when their company simply has a policy not to give references
It some countries they do. A friend sued his former employer because the letter of recommendation he got was not good enough. Strange thing is they agreed and also contacted him to come back working for them. But it depends on the country, in some countries letters of recommendation are very rare, I wrote a couple in more than 20 years, basically every time someone that worked for or with me asked for one.
Companies at least used to ask for references on resumes in the US but I'm not sure how common that is at this point and it was usually co-workers/clients/etc, and not sure how often it was even checked.
Letters of recommendations, or even reference phone calls, are something that are widespread in academia and in entry-level service jobs. Like if you want to be a server or bartender, they want to make sure you were actually showing up at your last job and didn't steal money from the register.
They're not really a thing in the corporate world. Your technical expertise, certifications, and dates of employment pretty much speak for themselves. At least in the US.
It is absolutely harder finding a job without references than with references. You also have less leverage for negotiating salary.
"Your technical expertise, certifications, and dates of employment pretty much speak for themselves."
This isn't true at all. Why do interviews if you just make the decision off the resume? Why do code screens or LeetCode?
I have tons of experience and a long tenure, a masters degree, multiple certs, etc yet I'm a low performer with a disability who struggles to even get interviews. But you wouldn't know that by looking at my resume. At one point I was a high performer and a letter of recommendation could have really helped me.
I've never even been asked for references at any technical job in my life. HR departments generally do make some attempt at verifying employment, doing a background check, etc.
So no, in these cases it's not harder. There's no leverage either way.
Because what do reference letters even mean? How do you know the person writing the letter is even telling the truth? This is somebody you've never met and don't know at all. How do you know they don't unfairly hold a grudge against this ex-employee because they took it personally when they quit? Or how do you know they don't just write glowing references for everyone because they know "it's tough out there" and "everyone deserves a second chance"?
I always assumed this is why I've never been asked for references in my professional career, because the companies I applied to knew that references aren't worth the paper they're written on.
The easy fix here is banning requests for references.
Also, no sane employer would be like "well this guy worked at a corporation that doesn't give references, guess I can't hire him." If you think that's how people who hire think, you must not hire. It isn't.
It would be a problem if a corporation gave references to some people and then declined to other times, because then it could be construed as negative, which is exactly why they have that policy.
Lol ok. You realize I can say the exact same thing to you...
You've offered no facts to support what little you've said. You "suspect" some things and have been told some other things by your manager. I too have been told things by managers and suspect things myself. But I guess because it's your opinion, everyone else's opinion must be wrong.
Writing a letter of reference is more and more a risky thing and even in non-employment situations, more people are reluctant to do it.
Most companies don’t constrain an individual employee from providing a recommendation. People might not want to do it, but that’s a different issue.