Back to Dear Lucy homepageI recently received a call from a headhunter for referral about one of my former staff. This person had done a good job for me and I certainly would have given him a positive reference. But I had heard that he had been fired by his new boss for fraud. I had not investigated the question further, so this was hearsay only. I had a split second to decide, as the headhunter would have understood hesitation as a negative. I decided to talk only about what I personally knew and gave him a positive reference. Did I do the right thing?
Manager, male, 55
Lucy’s answer
Of course you did the right thing. The headhunter wanted to know what you thought about this man when he was working for you, and you told him. He did not want to know what rumours you had heard about him subsequently. It is the headhunter’s job to hunt those down and find out whether there is anything in them. Whether he is competent to do this is another matter.
When giving a reference, one has two duties of fairness: to the future employer and to the ex-employee. You can get into trouble with the law if you are unfair to either. A reference in which you are unfairly damning can result in a suit from the old employee; one where you recommend someone who did a terrible job for you can land you in court too. As a result, many employers limit all references to a few tediously unhelpful details such as name, job title and dates.
This seems to me a shocking waste. It is fantastically unlikely that someone will sue if you are acting in good faith. And these taciturn references end up unfair to everyone: good employees don’t get the reference they deserve and future employers are even more in the dark than they need be. If your man worked well for you, he deserves to be recommended.
Even so, I can see why you feel vaguely uncomfortable. If this man turns out to be a Robert Maxwell, you may feel you are playing a part in his future career in fraud. In fact, you aren’t. You are just telling the truth as it seemed to you.
But I suspect you are also anxious because the rumours have shaken your own judgment and you wonder whether someone who struck you as a good egg might have been rotten. You should not worry on this score either. It is a fact of office life that one can work with someone for years without having the faintest idea what they are really like.
