Checking current employer reference

J.S. Pill

I'll try and summarise the situation as briefly as I can:

Back in November I applied for a public sector job. I got a letter back a month later informing me that I'd been short-listed and that the first stage of the interview process would be a computer skills test. I attended the test and about a month later I got a letter to call me for an interview.

I sat the interview (which I'll return to in a moment) and 2 weeks later I got a call asking if HR could contact my current employer for a reference. I told them that it would be ok but to give me a day to have a word with my boss about it.

Needless to say I was very confident that a job offer was imminent. About 10 days after the call from HR I got a letter informing me that I had been unsuccessful in my application.

My initial thought was of course that there had been an issue with one of my references (I had also submitted 2 previous employer references). I wrote an e-mail to the head of HR asking for some general interview feedback and asked if there had been any issue with my references. I was told that there were no issues with my references but the panel felt that my general computer skills weren't adequate for the job. Remember, I sat a computer test before the interview. I e-mailed back and asked why, after having passed the computer test, and after talking at length about the area in the interview, it was necessary to check my current work reference if there was such a big question mark over my computer skills.

The answer I got back was a bit puzzeling. She stated that sometimes, they assessed IT skills with a combination of the computer test, interview and references. All sounds perfectly reasonable except for the fact the the interview questionnaire contained only a passing reference to computer skills. Why on earth would they approach my current employer if they had no intention of offering me a job?

Before anyone jumps to the obvious conclusuion, there are definitely no problems with my past references and I sincerely doubt that my current boss would have screwed me over on this one. We get on well and I work at a low level in a large organisation that has a reasonably high turnover ; my leaving certainly wouldn't have brought down the company so he would have had no reason to frustrate my efforts to get another job. He even went so far to as to tell me exactly what was in the reference questionnaire in case there was any more stages to go through.

I could understand if I was rejected on the grounds of having insufficient computer skills - if I was just told this after the interview I could accept it - but the explanation given to me by HR for why they had to check my current reference seems really dubious. Having said that, I don't think there would be any point in pursuing this any further with them. I would probably just get a repeat of the last explanation and I don't want to burn any bridges in case I apply there in the future.

Is it a case that someone in there realised that their sister in law needed the job more than me or could there be a more reasonable explanation? I'd appreciate some comments from people who have been involved in recruiting and if they cold tell me if such flippant use of current references is more common than I think.

Thanks

AARRRGH

I would put it down to the HR person not really knowing why you didn't get the job so she gave the general "catch all" excuse.

There are so many useless HR people out there that I would really be inclined to put it down to them being tards rather than reference problems or something like that.

Mrs OBumble

Indeed, someone realised that their sister-in-law needed the job more than you did. But at least they were bright enough to realise that they couldn't tell you the real reason, so needed to make up another instead.

Consider yourself lucky: would you really want to work for an organisation that is so bad at hiring? Imagine what the rest of their systems must be like!

How Strange

I've heard of public sector HR doing ridiculous things which would get them fired in a heart beat if they were in the private sector..like telling someone they got the job only to come back the next day and say 'sorry, I got the rejected and accepted lists mixed up, you were on the rejected one'.

AFAIK, references checking is usually a formality to check that you are an honest, trustworthy person as you've gotten through the whole process and they are ready to offer you a job.

Very unprofessional IMO. Maybe someone who knows someone in the dept got the job so they had to backtrack with you.

J.S. Pill

How Strange wrote: »

I've heard of public sector HR doing ridiculous things which would get them fired in a heart beat if they were in the private sector..like telling someone they got the job only to come back the next day and say 'sorry, I got the rejected and accepted lists mixed up, you were on the rejected one'.

I initially thought it may have been just an administrative error on their part but I did ask them specifically in the e-mail if there maybe had been one. They didn't say yes or no either way - even if there was one would they be likely to admit it?

How Strange wrote: »

Very unprofessional IMO. Maybe someone who knows someone in the dept got the job so they had to backtrack with you.

I'd really like to believe that this isn't what happened. Now what are the chances of them admitting to this!!?

My question at this stage is where can I go from here. I've already been speaking with the head of HR and can't really take this to anyone higher. I should probably mention that the job was an admin job in a thrid level institution. With public sector recruitment, unlike the civil service, there's no oversight body that can deal with any grievances about recruitment procedure. Is there any point in taking this any further?

Serpentine

To be honest I don't think there is any point taking it any further, in fact it will probably only cause you greater stress and/or make you look bad Something similar happened a girl I work with, where a well known public sector org told her she had the job then after no word for a week when she called them about getting her contract etc she was told they had given the job to someone who lived closer, I kid you not :mad:

I know it's no comfort but you're probably much better off than in an organisation like that!

AARRRGH

Serpentine wrote: »

To be honest I don't think there is any point taking it any further

I agree. It will go no where and the employer is within its right to not give you the job.