
Ask HN: Do I have a right to know who gave me a bad reference? - anonnystate
Context is NY State.<p>I no longer have any interest in the position but a very positive process came to an abrupt halt and excuse relayed to me via headhunter was that one of my references had provided a mixed reference.<p>Before giving references I checked with each and explicitly asked (simply as a matter of form) if they are willing to be a reference and provide positive feedback.<p>All said of course, and one is a friend. I have asked the company, making it clear that I have no further interest (after all, I was interviewing them as well) but they are refusing to let me know which of my references provided them with the negative feedback. Given that they relayed this to the agency (from whom I heard the news) this has also obviously affected my standing with them and other leads with them have all gone silent.<p>What are my rights here? I simply want to know who is the snake so I can avoid them.<p>Thanks hn.
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epc
My advice: drop it, but don't use the same people as references again.

Whether a reference is good, bad, or mixed is entirely in the eye of the
interviewer/reference checker. The interviewer could have asked some question
like "tell me about a time @anonnystate went above and beyond in this role"
and your reference proceeds to tell about the time you left an after hours
party to fix the thing that broke the site. In your reference's mind that
showed dedication. In the interviewer's mind you worked on code while
partying.

They could have asked your references to describe your role, if it doesn't
match up with what you claimed your role to be: mixed reference.

And it's entirely possible that the people you asked to be your references
didn't want to say no, precisely to avoid the followup question of why.

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jacquesm
Consider that there might not even _be_ negative feedback but that they just
made that up to get rid of you for some other reason they are not willing to
divulge.

~~~
anonnystate
Exactly. But they have given this excuse to the hiring agency and tarnished
that relationship. Do I literally have to take them to court to find out? I
have asked in a very friendly manner explicitly stating I have no interest
whatsoever in their company -- again, the interview process was mutual -- but
they are claiming that confidentiality regulations prevent them disclosing it.
This is a small startup but they do have an adult CEO.

~~~
SyneRyder
That would concern me a lot. I understand why you want to know, but if I was
interviewing you, and you asked afterwards who gave a bad reference &
emphasized you're no longer interested in the job you just interviewed for,
and started discussing taking the company to court... I'd feel I just dodged a
bullet in not hiring you. It's a really bad look, I wouldn't want to get
entangled in your personal issues.

It sucks, but I think you need to move on from this one.

~~~
jacquesm
That all hinges on whether or not the story about the 'bad feedback' was real
or not. If it was real the company has no blame, if they made it up and
tarnished his rep without cause then that would be something else entirely.

~~~
mratzloff
There's no incentive for the hiring manager to invent it. "Not technically
qualified," "poor company fit," "we made an offer to a more highly qualified
candidate," are all just as easy to say, legitimately, and do not expose the
company to any liability.

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cl42
As someone who does a ton of reference checks when we're hiring, and who acts
as a reference for people as well, here's what I would do...

Call (do NOT email) each of your references and state the situation: "Hey Ms.
Reference, I recently got feedback from one of my job applications that a
reference check did not go as well as I expected. Given that I use you as a
reference in these situations, I wanted to check in to make sure that if you
had any feedback on my past performance or had any advice on how to make a
reference check go smoothly, I'd appreciate it."

A reference should not accept to be a reference if they will give bad
feedback.

I do agree with folks here who are saying this might not be the real reason
for the turndown, but definitely approach your references if you are
concerned.

EDIT: to answer your question directly you really don't have much of a right
here. This is all lovey-dovey-fuzzy human stuff. I doubt your potential
employer will share the feedback, nor would I even ask. If anything, ask for
general feedback on what was said or what could have been done better by you.

~~~
manmal
> A reference should not accept to be a reference if they will give bad
> feedback.

What is a reference for, then? A future employer wants an honest view on the
candidate.

~~~
cl42
I'd say a reference is a social construct that implies Person A is willing to
vouch for Person B. Their goal isn't to give a fully honest and unadulterated
opinion on all strengths + weaknesses of an individual, but rather to show
that Person B is _capable_ of good work. You're basically finding their upper
bound, not necessarily the range of skill sets.

Accepting to be a reference when being requested by an applicant assumes
you'll be honest but also courteous and positive.

In some situations, a potential employer might require to speak with a
specific individual who you might not have asked to be a reference. In that
situation, the social contract above doesn't apply.

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jbob2000
A mixed reference can mean a few things. I had a career counsellor once tell
me that if a reference wasn't completely ecstatic and over-the-moon about you,
then it's a bad reference.

So possibly what happened is that your reference said something along the
lines of "I worked with anonnystate and he came on time and completed his
work". Which sounds good to you, but to a potential employer, this is pretty
mediocre and might indicate that the reference is hiding something. If your
friend doesn't know how to give a real reference, then this may be the case.

~~~
frgewut
Or maybe they just asked "tell us something about your negative experiences
working with @annoystate".

I just wouldn't bother - expect 9 out of 10 interview to fail anyway.

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chrisabrams
I am willing to bet $100 that no one gave you a bad reference.

In NY this is becoming a lame way to turn someone down, knowing that the
reason will draw attention away from the company while the actual reason has
nothing to do with references.

~~~
duiker101
It could also be that they gave what they thought was a good reference while
the interviewer saw it in a different light.

~~~
serg_chernata
I agree with both commenters above. You don't know for a fact if the liar is
one of your references or the headhunter. This could very well be a lame
excuse to pass on you as a candidate.

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haasted
Ask a friend to act as a headhunter, and call each of the people on your list
of references asking for their opinion.

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brudgers
1\. For legal rights under New York Sate employment law, it might be best to
talk to an attorney.

2\. There is what the reference said. What the firm told told the headhunter
and what the headhunter said. The information is third hand.

3\. If there were multiple channels into the firm, then information could have
come from one of their networks independently of the provided references.

4\. Because the list of past employers are as much references as personal
references, it could have been anyone at a former employer who was indifferent
and contact could have been outside formal HR channels.

5\. The headhunter could have formed the opinion on their own and withdrawn
your candidacy. The headhunter could have been unable to reach favorable terms
with the company regarding their compensation. Someone more appealing to the
headhunter could have come along. The job might not really exist. It might
have been filled.

Sure, not getting a job kinda sucks. It's probably not worth the risk of
collateral damage due to insufficient or inaccurate information. Or both.

Good luck.

------
Lordarminius
Why not ask each of them directly ? Do not let on that you are in dark as to
the contents of their reference. If done right, you can elicit an admission of
culpability.

~~~
anonnystate
One was a friend and I nearly damaged that relationship yesterday in course of
asking. Thank God his calmness saved our friendship. The other 2 are merely
colleagues.

what do you mean exactly by "done right"? Appreciate the social engineering
tip!

~~~
s_q_b
Approach the issue orthogonally. Open a conversation about something else,
then ask, "Oh did you ever get a call about that reference?"

1\. If he denies receiving the call, that's him.

2\. If he becomes unfomfortable that's likely him, but you need more
information.

3\. If you receive any other answer, press on.

"Yeah, the recruiter gave me a run down on what everybody said so far..." Now
wait. See if that elicits anything. A change of topic without answering would
be the typical "poor man's" lie.

If there's no obvious indication, you're now in a position to ask
"informational" questions. First, restore their impression of anonymity. Slip
in, "Yeah, but the reviews weren't matched up with names." If there's an
obvious sign of relief, that's likely your person.

"Do you remember what questions they asked, by any chance. A friend asked me
to give her a reference, and I want to avoid any potholes." You can circle
around the topic like that for a few questions. A typical honest person will
quickly become bored by the topic. A dishonest person will politely, and fully
give as many answers to your questions as you want.

That's a start. Try to ask this face to face. Trust your instincts here, not
your reason.

Remember your brain has a tremendously complicated apparatus for detecting
lies. But this apparatus operates subconsciously. To utilize it, you'll have
to become comfortable with observing your own responses. Does something "seem"
off?

Another useful tactic is to simply ask twice. Lies are hard to remember, and
they shift over time to explain away new evidence. The truth remains constant.

Remember, this doesn't have to be perfect. You're really just trying to
probabilistically improve the chance that you successfully eliminate the bad
reference.

To be honest, however, I doubt the person even realizes that their reference
sunk you. As others have suggested, it was probably an accidentally lukewarm,
"Oh yes, I can confirm so-and-so worked here. He's a hard worker, and he has
my recommendation." That's pretty much the boilerplate HR reference, for the
exact reason of avoiding liability.

I wouldn't even bother with social engineering. You're more likely to damage
your social network than gain anything of use.

Pick yourself up, find another gig, use different references, and move on.

Remember, you're in one of the most in demand fields in the economy. Relax and
find someplace that doesn't ghost you over a hiccup.

~~~
Lordarminius
And to add to all the above,since your conversation with friend number one,
your job is already 1/3 done.

------
jabraham1822
Hn Hi I have been in the biz for 26 years and I am sorry to say that I have
not see any rights for this. These are the references you are giving. On the
other hand its important to understand that lots of time signal are crossed
between the reference check and reference giver.

Meaning most companies use references to disqualify and that the reference
checker may not ask followup questions to understand the context of the
questionable information. That is not your problem, its the companies problem
and they are missing great talent.

For example I always ask a references this question. "Everyone has something
they can improve on what can this candidates improve on?"

Yesterday i received feedback on this question that was questionable. "The
response was that you need to help the candidate to stay focus."

HMMMMM that's not good, I said to my self is this +/\- I need to explore more.
I asked some follow up questions and I found out that the candidates requested
help to fix a new AppSec too. The request was not followed up on by the
reference in a timely fashion and the candidate fixed the tool's code to make
it work : )

Long story short, I was able to gather from this reference that it was the
references' responsibility not to waste this candidates time. So for the next
employer, he said its important to respond quickly to his needs so you don't
waste valuable Building, Breaking and Defending AppSec time. Because he is
smart of enough to find and fix anything.

So in essence, if I took what the reference at face value with out seeking to
understand this would have been a mixed reference. Now I am able to educated
the new hiring prospects on this feedback.

Hn, you can only do so much so you might change up your references a bit to be
safe but there is a lot out of yours and their control.

Sorry and have a great weekend!

Joel @doyouidentify

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pc86
Let's just assume for a moment that you actually did receive a mixed
reference, intentionally, and it wasn't misinterpreted by anyone. As others
have mentioned that's not a foregone conclusion but for the sake of argument
let's assume that is what happened.

> _I have asked the company ... but they are refusing to let me know which of
> my references provided them with the negative feedback._

Of course they are, because it's none of your business. You do not have a
legal right to the information.

> _What are my rights here?_

You have the right to continue applying and to use different people for
references.

> _I simply want to know who is the snake_

Based on your comments in this thread, the entitlement, the threat of
lawsuits, and calling someone a snake for giving you a bad reference, it seems
perfectly reasonable that someone _would_ have given a bad reference.

------
notacoward
My guess is that it wasn't one of your "official" references. Even though
they're generally not supposed to, every employer will consider "backdoor"
references from other people in their network who know you. Often, these are
given greater weight than the references you provide, because those are known
by all involved to have been picked and prepared to put you in the most
positive light possible.

Asking the no-longer-potential employer or your current references about it is
unlikely to do any good. Using different references might, but then again
maybe not. You probably already know what negatives might have come up in a
conversation with people who've worked with you. If those are affecting your
career development, the solution should be obvious.

~~~
robbiemitchell
> Even though they're generally not supposed to

Do you mean legally? Or something else?

~~~
notacoward
It's a pretty murky area. Legally, there are four possibilities:

    
    
      * Anything goes.
    
      * OK, but you have to inform the candidate after the fact.
    
      * OK, but you have to get consent *before*.
    
      * Absolutely not.
    

The requirements vary state by state, and are often more restrictive for
recruiters than for employers themselves. On the other hand, companies may
have internal policies more restrictive than what the law requires. This is
often due to the risks involved - defamation, harm from current employer
finding out that they were looking, etc. Just about any HR professional will
say you shouldn't do it, but usually they're just covering their own asses. In
my experience, everyone does it and HR turns a blind eye.

------
awinder
I'm actually kinda impressed / amazed that you got the "bad reference" excuse
blatantly. That area just seems murky for pretty much this exact reaction,
most places I've worked have had policies stating that you can't give negative
references (only positive or decline to comment).

All kinds of crazy stuff can go down in interviews and unless it's part of a
trend, you just have to chalk it up to their loss. I had an interview where
the hiring manager came back with lots of praise and offer forthcoming news,
turn into "team could not reach consensus" in under 24 hours. People in
interviews will come up with all sorts of crazy reasons not to proceed.
Sometimes it's a turf war, sometimes it's thinking they need to protect
themselves, sometimes it's some innocuous occurrence in the interview that
sows enough doubt to not proceed. Your career is way more than the few
incidents that will occur over it that make no sense, so I'd just not worry
about it for now. More bad could come from trying to McCarthy your reference
network than good based on one weird interview scenario :-).

------
anexprogrammer
Never, never use a referee who you are not certain is going to be fully
singing your praises.

If youre unsure about any of the referees you're using, set up a fake
opportunty via friends and spoofed emails etc. Get real references, which of
course are sent to you, or relayed if a friend phones "as a
headhunter/employer".

There's also a distinct possiblilty that the referee had been hassled at a bad
moment by the headhunter (not a species reknowned for consideration after
all). The mixed part may have stemmed from this. Or perhaps he didn't
cooperate in sharing leads at his current location. It might have been poor
wording or misunderstanding either a question or answer rather than a real
issue.

In short, you'll never know, but you can arm yourself better for next time.

~~~
adnam
_misunderstood - deleted_ :)

~~~
anexprogrammer
I'm not suggestng you fake references. I'm suggesting he find out what
referees have to say, by getting a friend to ask them for a reference. There
is nothing dishonest about finding out what a potential referee has to say
about you, and how.

It's certainly no more dishonest than the hundreds of agents who try to insist
on references before interviews - because they're using them for lead
generation.

If it's an ex-employer, as many are, it's not unheard of for them to give
minimal or less than glowing reference simply because theyre still unhappy you
left and nothing to do with your skills and personality.

To use a referee without being as sure you're using the best names from the
possibles is foolish.

~~~
adnam
Ah I see, sorry then. I'll remove my comment as I misunderstood and it's not
relevant.

------
atomical
Sometimes references are collected through e-mail. You could create a fake
e-mail account, company, and send out a questionnaire to your references.
Another possibility is having a friend send out the e-mail using their company
e-mail account.

------
brador
How serious are you about finding out?

If you want to invest time into it, round robin applications. For example, if
you need 3 references per application, get 4 then cycle them in sets of 3 each
time. Or find an application that requires only 2 references and split sets.
Eventually you will have enough data to know who the bad reference came from.
This is time consuming, but will net you your answer.

The truth is, your options are drop all the references you used, even the ones
you think are solid, or find out who the lame duck is and delete them.

Legally, no one can say anything because it opens them up to a lawsuit, so
stop chasing that avenue unless you know them personally.

Good luck!

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DoubleGlazing
It is possible all you references were good, but some were "form" or not
expressive enough.

One of my old employers had a very strict policy of only issuing a standard
reference which was basically to confirm I worked there, my job title and my
start/finish dates. Staff and managers were expressly forbidden from giving
references - they had to refer all requests to HR.

I had a job offer withdrawn as a result of this. The potential employer asked
specific questions in their reference request and my old employer refused to
answer then - instead giving them their standard form reference. Not my fault,
and nothing I could do about it.

------
robbiemitchell
The headhunter says "mixed reference," and you have translated that to
"negative feedback," which is not the same thing.

It could be that someone who generally thinks highly of you gave a glowing
reference, but once the headhunter or hiring manager started digging into
specifics, the person softened, hesitated, or otherwise answered in a way that
the company was not looking for. It's possible the reference was unaware that
what he/she said was interpreted in a mixed or negative light by the company.

------
pfortuny
Ouch.

What is even a "mixed" reference? I mean, what a lame excuse. It is enough to
say "he has great engineering abilities and some good accounting" to say that
it is "mixed"...

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TallGuyShort
And this is why references can easily be useless. Even comic book villains
could produce a few henchman to vouch for them and not mention their arch-
enemies.

~~~
raverbashing
Exactly true.

Though usually the reference is "grilled" a bit into several aspects, it's not
usually a matter of "good or not good"

------
nibs
I think this might be similar to buying a house with a conditional offer of
home inspection and then deciding to nullify the offer on a mixed/negative
home inspectors report. It is entirely subjective, and the report could have
been positive, and in the hands of the buyer. It is a way of backing out of
the deal if you cannot come up with financing, change your mind, etc. Could be
similar.

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zakk
Call the people who acted as referee to thank them. You should do that anyway.
In the process mention that "one of the other referees gave a mixed
references, so I couldn't get the position", without accusing him directly.
See how the conversation goes from there.

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greatemployee
The best way to know for sure is to have someone who is not you, and who is
not a potential employer, call each of your references and pretend to be
reference-checking.

------
anonnystate
Thank you all for the feedback. It has been helpful.

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pbreit
I doubt you have any "right" to know. Are you certain it wasn't a back-channel
reference (ie, not one of the ones you provided)?

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n72
Moral or legal? Legal, no clue. Moral, hell no.

~~~
frgewut
Unmoral = call your references pretending to be a recruiter.

