This is so important!

Story time:

I once hired someone as a Mid/Senior Dev at a large company in SV who had strong dev skills. Everything seemed great at first and we were very excited to have this person join the team.

I respected this dev and had no personal issues with them. Our interactions were positive. However this person quit suddenly after maybe two weeks because they didn't like having to justify their technical approach on their very first project to other team members. They just wanted to work alone and not interact with anyone else.

More power to this dev for seeking out their preferred work environment - I totally respect that! - but it wasn't exactly a positive experience for us. We spent weeks and weeks with Recruiting/HR and back and forth on offers to finally end up with someone who quit without any warning after mere days.

And of course I get a phone call a few weeks later where this dev (without contacting me in any way) has listed me as a reference for their new job. What do they think I am going to say? "Yes, during the multiple days this person worked with me before they quit, they seemed smart?"

Please don't sabotage yourself like that. Check with your references first!

I’ll second this for a different set of reasons.

Firstly, if you talk to your reference about the position you are applying for they will be in a better position to give meaningful feedback. I’ve been able to take somebody from a “maybe” to a hire because I knew how their interview went and their perceived weaknesses.

Secondly, you want to make sure that the person isn’t just going to be cold called—ideally they can set up a time over email so it’s at a good time. One time, while checking my reference the company called and somebody else picked up their phone as they weren’t in. They then proceeded to tell them that they’ve never heard of me and that I didn’t ever work there.

> They then proceeded to tell them that they’ve never heard of me and that I didn’t ever work there.

I did that to my boss once when I worked at a temp agency, someone called asking about employment history so I dutifully typed the name into the computer and was like "nope, looks like they've never worked here." Right after I hung up the phone I was like "wait a minute..." Office staff wasn't in the workers database so we couldn't cut ourselves checks and I totally spaced on the last name.

Amen! The reference check takes work for both you and the reference. Never give it out early because there is prep time for everyone.

Are you legally allowed to mention that? I thought references could only verify if you worked for the company, or otherwise risk being sued. Maybe that's a myth? Regardless, it's pretty odd he would put your company down as a reference after only staying two weeks.

You're thinking employment verification, or checking that the places you listed on your work history are correct. As an employer, you open yourself up to litigation if you say anything more than dates and titles. I mean there are stories of employers being called about a past, problematic employee, and saying things like "I could get sued if I told you how their performance was, wink wink." But... :-)

I don't believe in Colorado it is illegal to say anything more, it's just not worth it to risk possible litigation.

TIL, thanks. I guess I thought employment verification and references were roughly the same thing, which sounds silly now that I think about it.

That is a CYOA policy that many companies have, not a law. In the US, you are legally in the clear as long as you aren't telling outright falsehoods unless you have some form of explicit NDA.

> CYOA (Cover Your Own Ass/Arse): an alternative form of the slang phrase Cover your ass

I think that might be a US thing. The rest of the world is much less litigousb (alhough you could still be in trouble if you actually lied)

References can say whatever they want.

Well, depending on what you mean by that, it isn't necessarily true.

If you mean "References can say whatever they want without any potential legal ramifications", that's not true. If you say anything that is demonstrably false about the former employee, you can be sued under defamation laws (and, yes, you can lose). Of course what it was that you actually said (and the potential harm done to the former employee) makes a huge difference as to their chances of winning such a lawsuit.

This is one of the reasons many employers have the policy of only confirming that a former employee has in fact worked for the company in the past. Usually it is because their legal team (or for smaller companies, just the lawyer they use) have advised them not to give out anything further.

References can be (and have been) sure for giving a review that keeps a person from getting a job.

If I’m in a position where I can’t give a good reference, I don’t give a reference at all.

Which is probably a good policy for a lot of other reasons.

I think you're thinking of HR being only able to say that the person worked there in some places.

You are always at risk of being sued. But if some had listed you directly as a reference you should feel you have more freedom than if you are just listed as a former employer.

You don't say anything. You transfer the person to your HR dept and they only confirm employment.

Eh. He probably just didn't like the team/felt that they didn't know what they were doing/they wasted more time on meetings and discussion in general rather than him just not wanting to justify his approach.

I just can't imagine being able to judge that in a two week period unless it's a total shit show. I have no reason to doubt the GP and I think its more likely this is just a case of "I know better".

And honestly unless the hiring manager straight up lied during interviewing that's the employees fault for not asking better questions about the position during the interview process.

So many people forget that interviews are a two way street. I don't want to hire someone that is going to be unhappy in the position because unhappy programmers have poor output and bring down team morale.

They need to ask specific questions about the things that are important to them in a job so I know they are really thinking about whether the position is right for them or not.

Candidates who ask me no questions after being prompted for them never make it past the phone screening interview despite sometimes being very technically capable.

It's difficult to get an accurate perception of a team without working with them for a bit.

Either way, trying to get a reference from a team you were only at for a few days seems ill-advised.

(btw, the comment you replied to never mentioned the gender of the person)

Stating the fact - that the GP knew him only for few days in a professional capacity - should be legal, rt? Any negative inference from that is left for the company doing the reference check.

Yes, stating "I only knew him/her a short time" wouldn't run afoul. It's when you venture into something like "I only knew him a short time - he quit shortly after being hired. I don't have a high opinion of him"

You're allowed to have opinions and share them. The problem comes if your opinion can be argued to be based on a legally protected action/characteristic.

This is why many HR departments don't like their employees giving out references, which really sucks since "Yes, this person was employed during [DATES] and was not fired" is not super helpful.

Besides, if an employees quits after two weeks because it was a bad match, that's actually good.

Sure, it's painful to find someone new. But it's a lot better than having to fire someone that who later. Or be stuck with someone who doesn't want to be there.

I wouldn't, so long as it sticks to facts. No need to be unreasonably negative.

"Honestly, he only worked here for two weeks, and then quit without notice. I didn't even know he'd use me as a reference."

"Honestly, I don't know how much help I'll be. He worked here for two weeks, and then turned in his resignation stating he wasn't comfortable discussing his work with others. I didn't realize I'd be a reference before you called".

These are facts, the first two easily verifiable in court - who would likely have no trouble believing the third.

Anecdote: I once listed three references. All three had favorable opinions of me. But I didn't tell any of them and they were unprepared to answer the questions that followed in a reference call.

One of them was able to wing it well. Second one answered questions flatly and without enthusiasm. A third was more nervous not to hurt me than he was confident he could help me with his answers.

I thought the surprise effect would be telling to my interviewers that the answers were not artificial.

Looking back, in a world where all interviews are artificial, why was I trying so hard to be different?

For most people, it takes conscious thought and effort to take an impression and articulate it. When you tell your references ahead of time, you're giving them a chance to take their impression/opinion/emotion of you and figure out how to put it into words ahead of time. There's nothing artificial about the outcome if you give them the time to do this. In fact it may seem more natural since they aren't nervous and on the spot!

Not to mention that by asking someone for a reference, you're asking them to do you a favor. So you should, y'know... actually ask them first.

> I thought the surprise effect would be telling to my interviewers that the answers were not artificial.

I tried this once for a job interview. I didn't prepare at all besides quickly scanning the company website.

It was a disaster. The position was for a PHP developer, and I accidentally mentioned that there is a lot of crappy PHP code in the world, in a way that made it sound like I didn't like PHP (I don't, but that's besides the point).

It didn't help that the interview was with an HR person. If it was with another developer, I would've been more than happy to elaborate on my opinion that there is a lot of poorly written PHP code, and that it is very easy to write poor quality PHP, but it is possible to write good (or acceptable) PHP.

That's the companies fault for interviewing you with a HR person. When I do the hiring for my teams I explicitly don't let non-technical people do more than the absolute most basic filtering (i.e this person can't spell for shit, this person doesn't have any experience etc).

In fact, I'd love to have some candidates come in and shit all over X language or Y library. It's a good sign as long as they stick to factual gripes and aren't just mindlessly ranting. People who don't care about doing the best possible job don't give a shit, they'll happily use whatever is popular on autopilot for years of their career.

All my interviewing has been for front-end so most of my interviewees are deeply entrenched in whatever the fad of the month cult is (Vue seems to be the June 2018 pick). I spend the second half of each interview begging them to give me some kind of discussion point, pros/cons of something, an opinion of their own, or literally anything other than the pseudo-marketing tripe on page 1 of their favourite library's documentation ("I love working with Typescript because it scales so well!" puke)

Sounds like your HR person didn't know what they were looking for ;)

> It's also important for your references to know that they're your references ahead of time.

It's always good practice to get someone's permission anyway before you pass on their contact details. If it's time critical and you need to put people in contact, you get the contact details of the person who's asking and you pass those details on to the person they want to talk to.

LinkedIn is also problematic as they could potentially tap common connections in your network without your knowledge.