Comments on: Survey: Most companies reluctant to give useful reference information

By: Cherene B

Cherene B — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 21:28:32 +0000

We provide neutral responses unless we receive a signed form from the prospective employer with the former employee’s signature authorizing us to provide more information. Even then only HR is allowed to provide information.

By: Eunice Montfort

Eunice Montfort — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 17:12:10 +0000

I think it is important for companies to be honest when giving out reference information. I try to be as candid as I can with inquiring companies without doing anything to jeopardize the perspective candidate’s opportunity to be considered for the job. However, if our employee had poor attendance, I am not going to pretend he didn’t. If there were extenuating circumstance regarding the problem, I will try to let the inquiring company know about that. If the employee had poor attendance but was a wiz bang at his job once he got to work, I will usually say that too. I definitely don’t use a reference inquiry as an opportunity to slam a previous employee or to deliberately try to sabatoge their chances to get another job, but I do try to give truthful answers to questions that deal with job performance.

By: Pat S

Pat S — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 16:26:29 +0000

I belong to a roundtable of other HR managers in my industry. We will give each other information on prior employees. To anyone else who calls, it’s the usual neutral reference.