How To Deal With A Bad Reference
By Joan Lloyd
Dear Joan:
I was up for a job with a hospital; I had first and second
interviews and they checked my references. Apparently one of my
past employers gave me an unfavorable reference. I honestly have no
clue which one because I didn't think I left on bad terms with any
of them. I always gave about three weeks notice.....
The sad thing is that my current employer gave me a raving
reference (I know because he told me and one of my co-workers was
right next to him when he did it).
So when the H.R. person from the hospital called and told me I
was basically flabbergasted! She said she couldn't tell me what the
unfavorable reference was or who gave it! Is that true? If it is;
how can I or the hospital, for that matter, even be sure the past
employer's reference is even accurate?
The H.R. person even basically told me not to even bother
applying for any more jobs there. Why don't I have the right to
refute what the employer said? I'm just supposed to sit back and
let that employer ruin any chance I have to better myself and my
career?
Please let me know what my rights are here. I don't want to
file a lawsuit or anything like that; I'm not that kind of person.
I just want to know what was said and who said it. If it ends up
true I will own up to it; but if it's not true I want it known by
the hospital and I don't want it to happen again!
Answer:
You aren’t going to like my answer. If you get a poor reference, the responsibility for figuring out who gave it is yours and it’s your job to eliminate that employer from your reference list.
You aren’t going to like my answer. If you get a poor reference, the responsibility for figuring out who gave it is yours and it’s your job to eliminate that employer from your reference list.
If you choose to work with a staffing firm, sometimes they can
be useful in this regard, since part of the service they provide to
their clients (employers) is to pre-check references for job
candidates. Be open with them about the situation, but understand
if they sense any anger, or think you may retaliate in any way,
they will be hesitant or unwilling to share any information with
you.
I’m not surprised that the hospital didn’t tell
you who gave you a negative reference, they don’t want to get
into a he said/she said. They will simply move on to another
candidate. References are confidential conversations between two
employers for the purpose of checking out an employee before he or
she is hired, so betraying that confidence isn’t
likely.
Even if you did figure out who it was and went back to the
hospital with your side of the story do you really think it would
make you look good? Do you think the hospital would want to take
sides? They have no way of evaluating whose story to believe and
they are most likely to think, “We don’t want any part
of this. Why would we want to hire an employee who is in a
potential legal situation with her former employer?”
It’s great that your current employer gave you a glowing
reference. Current employers carry a lot of weight. Hopefully you
are still employed and there are no hard feelings about your desire
to seek other employment. In fact, if you are doing that well,
perhaps they will take steps to keep you.
Regarding the rest of your reference list, you may have some
luck calling each of them and asking if they were contacted by the
hospital. If they say they were, you can ask them what questions
they were asked and see if they will share how they answered. In
the past, when I have been a reference, I’ve been called by
the job hunter to inquire how the reference check went. You
don’t need to go into any details about the bad reference
incident—in fact, I wouldn’t say anything about it,
since you could taint them for future references. Instead, your
purpose would be to sort out who to remove from your list.
