I Got F@*ked by My Reference

My reference f@*ked me and my recruiter won’t tell me who said what?!!

Situation: You are at the end of the hiring process for a job that is to die for and you give your standard 3 references and your potential future boss says he did the references and won’t be hiring you.

You ask your recruiter what gives and they go all Marcel Marceau on you. What gives?

Uh, the law. Your recruiter can tell you what was said, if you request it in writing, but not who said it.

Your recruiter may not know. Companies request references from you but also sometimes “check around” via their own network and contacts and do a more informal reference. This makes your recruiter as crazy as it makes you. We’d all like to face our accusers and be able to rebut. But an informal reference has the feel of objectivity since you didn’t set it up, and they tend to carry the day.

This very real, commonplace and annoying situation is one of the reasons you should work with a world class recruiting firm. Because when it happens, they cry foul, and tell your potential future boss:

“This is intrinsically unfair and I want you to reconsider. If I called everyone you ever worked with, you being human and all, someone would say they don’t like you. This is especially true with rainmakers and high impact people. They make things happen and rankle low impact people. There may well be an axe to grind here, a personal vendetta, and without giving my candidate a reasonable chance to explain or respond, you are treating them in a way you would find objectionable if it were happening to you.”

A world class recruiter overcomes this deadly deal breaker.

Unless what the reference is saying about you is true and you know it and they know that you know it. We all have to put our own heads on our own pillows at night. Cop to whatever painful, embarrassing, regretful episode you know your references are going to unearth anyway and the companies will be amazingly forgiving. If they find out on their own, they become TMZ-ish and play “gotcha.”