Would you believe a poor reference?

[singlecoil]

Let's suppose you have interviewed someone for a job, and they appear to have met all your requirements, and you offer them a job subject to satisfactory references. Let us further suppose that you then contact the previous employer who tells you that they are glad the person left, that they wouldn't have him or her back, and goes on to mention specific things that they did not like about their previous employee.

Given the above, what would you then do? Would you go on to the next person on your short list, would you make your own mind up, would you ask the potential employee for his/her side of the story? Something else?

I'm asking because something of this sort happened to me a few years ago and it did prevent me from getting one job, but not from getting another (although hints were dropped), and I thought it would be an interesting subject to discuss.

Incidentally, my current employer has nothing but the highest praise for me, as a rather shy person I find such praise embarrassing but have learned to live with it.

[craigjm]

I don't bother taking up references beyond checking they worked there and in the job that they say they did. Past performance is not an indicator of future potential and the employee doesn't get a chance to respond. Most companies wouldn't give a poor reference either as they are too concerned about action from the employee so you usually end up with bland crap. If your company has a probation procedure then that is how you test them for the job.

[rog007]

I've not seen a derogatory reference in years for just the reasons outlined above. I'm also of the opinion that references today fulfill a very narrow requirement; that they have been employed as stated, and legally. As to their competence and fit, that's now up to me to determine, through both pre-employment assessment and interview, and a probation period. Post probation, then it's normal annual appraisal and performance management if failing.

[Johnnytheboy]

Ditto, not seen a remotely informative refernece in years.

You can get much more from someone's own attempt to describe their career in interview/CV.

[singlecoil]

Well in my case it wasn't in writing, it was when the potential employer phoned the previous employer to ask about me. Nothing in writing, but it's easy to give an impression, good or bad, with relatively few words. The person concerned definitely had a grudge against me, and it would have delighted her to have been able to exercise it.