“Never Assume” – Your Job References
You’re filling out a job application when you come to the question “May we contact your former supervisor?” While you didn’t “part company” with them on particularly good terms, your understanding is that all they should be allowed to divulge to a prospective employer were your title and employment dates. Anything beyond that would be illegal. So, should you check that box “yes’?
The answer is indeed “yes”, but not for the reason mentioned here. It’s always in your best interest to tell a prospective employer they can contact your former supervisor, for the simple reason that telling them they cannot will raise a “red flag” and likely ensure that you’ll be removed from consideration. Yet, assuming your former supervisor cannot – and will not – offer any unflattering commentary about you is equally ill-advised.
While legal and/or corporate guidelines may indeed state that only your employment dates/titles can be confirmed, it is not necessarily illegal per se for a reference to give negative commentary about you. References can – and very frequently do – offer considerably more commentary to your prospective employer than simply verifying your employment dates/title. As a result, many job-seeking candidates who expect a favorable (or at least neutral) assessment from their references unknowingly lose out on employment opportunities as a result of bad job references.
Note that for their own legal protection, prospective employers will almost never share with a candidate the fact that a negative reference was received. This is highly problematic for any job applicant – how are they to know when a reference is offering negative, perhaps unlawful input about them to a prospective employer? Even if they know this, how can they address it?