Seeking references from a person's current employer?!

LegacyUser

I'm just writing this out of curiosity really.

I work in a very very large accounting firm. I heard recently of a colleage, a trainee accountant, who applied for another job outside of the firm.

She was very very unlucky in that the person who interviewed her for this job had a contact within our firm. He decided to ring the contact just on the off-chance that the contact might know the girl, and might be able to provide a reference. And of all the hundreds of managers within the firm, this manager - the contact - was the girl's performance manager. Who naturally was very shocked and very p*ssed off that the girl was off doing interviews without his knowledge.

Basically, I'm wondering, is this acceptable? For the interviewer to do this? It seems so wrong to me that an interviewer could go seeking references like this - she had said "references available on request" on her CV. Has she any comeback against the interviewer?

Eoin

That's bad form alright, but I don't know what comeback she would have.

Nody

I can't see any comeback to be honest; references on request is simply to stop giving them up front but that does not in any way limit the references the future employer may seek out.

pow wow

+1 - I can't imagine what the interviewer could possibly provide in terms of redress at this stage.

Informal 'chats' with contacts in candidates' current companies happen a lot, particularly in financial services. I suspect that's what that was, moreso than a check for a reference. If the interviewer were seeking an actual reference would the candidate not have provided the contact rather than the interviewer lucking out and calling their friend who just happens to be the candidate's performance manager?

From personal experience this does happen quite often but it's usually done discreetly!

pollypocket10

IME this does happen A LOT. However this doesn't mean it is correct or legal.

I work in Recruitment and while I am not overly familiar with the legislation in this area, I don know the basics that pertain to my job. You should never complete reference check without the permission of the candidate. It does happen, particularly if potential employers have personal friends etc in a previous employers company and more often that not the candidate will never hear about it.

The data protection act is the relevant legislation in this case so she would be best to take up the case with the data protection commissioner if she wishes to pursue it.

IMHO however, my advice would be to let it go., its a small issue in the great scheme of things and could hamper any efforts to get a good reference from this manager in the future.

Mrs OBumble

Informal discussions, which aren't reference checks, are very, very common. They often start with with the former boss/colleague getting a text saying "can you talk?" ... former boss walks to a quiet place, calls their friend back, and tells it like it really is.

Of course employers can't officially use the information that they find out. But it can often influence how they perceive other info they've gathered.

She's only got comeback if she can prove it happened.

Of course if her performance manager let's her know that it happened, or changes his/her behaviour towards her in any way, that's proof! (Sounds like he's been a silly boy, IHO).

Wisco

I've seen job applicants write something like 'Please inform me before contacting my current employer so that I can discuss it with them before they are suprised by a phone call' in their cover letter, or something similar, especially if you are working in a field where many people know each other and are not used to more formal HR procedure.

johnfás

Quite possibly a breach of the Data Protection Act insofar as the candidate did not indicate the person in her company as a referee and did not consent to the fact of her application being discussed with a third party. Whether you do anything about it is an entirely different matter though... burning bridges is a costly exercise even when one is morally and legally justified.

Stheno

JustMary wrote: »

Informal discussions, which aren't reference checks, are very, very common.

I was told in one interview I had that my potential employer had actually been talking about me with people I'd worked with!

johnfás wrote: »

Quite possibly a breach of the Data Protection Act insofar as the candidate did not indicate the person in her company as a referee and did not consent to the fact of her application being discussed with a third party.

Not sure it would be covered under Data Protection as it wouldn't necessarily be classed as "sensitive personal information" that the person is going for an interview. The interviewer is ringing a contact asking if they know of a potential candidate.