Tell the truth or disguise? 3

[MedicineEng]

Imagine this hypothesis:
You live in an area with a big shortage of a particular resource, for instance engineers.
You work with a very good engineer with whom, not being exactly your friend, you maintain a cordial relationship.
One day you receive a call from a headhunter trying to get references from this engineer to take him to another job.
What would you do:

-You tell the truth and tell him that he is a very good engineer and risk that he will leave the company leaving a really bad situation to be solved;

-"Protect" the company and paint a "darker" picture in order to have the headhunter loosing its interest?

 

[SomptingGuy]

Decline or tell the truth. The truth is one of those brilliant things that can always be derived again on demand. Untruths need to be remembered.

 

[MintJulep]

So he gave your name as a reference without asking you first?

 

[jmw]

Get real.

This is where the old "do unto (for) others as you would have them do unto you." comes in to its own.
(It recognises a human frailty; self interest. Instead of "do the right thing", always a difficult concept to grasp or define or even encourage; under this guidance, you can even go overboard in praise, if that is what you'd like others to do for you.)

And of course, in this and in work the fundamental guiding all your actions should be self first; your interests and your family's. The company comes after.
The company's interests should always come after your own unless you own the company.
If engineers are in short supply, your company needs to protect a vital resource.
Your company, not you.

You may be next on the list and either your company is doing its best to retain engineers (and that means you as well) or it isn't.

If it isn't then you need to know that you will also have access to better jobs and be able to trust your referee's to be honest (or better).

In this scenario, you have overlooked something. References are taken up with consent. The prospective employee nominates his references and should already have spoken to his references before naming them. In other words, this shouldn't be a surprise and your answer should not be in doubt. The engineer should have ensured his references to begin with.


If the company can't hold its engineers then HR or management or both own the problem. It is a problem that affects all the engineers including you. It may suggest that

JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[memiles]

I can only speak for myself. In this case I would politely decline stating "I was not asked to give a reference"

This in itself is a character reference.

Mike

 

[PSE]

In agreement with previous posters, I would only give out reference information about someone who had asked me originally to be one and I agreed.

On occasion, I have had a call from either a Headhunter or HR person about an individual I may have worked with in the past who had perhaps "dropped" my name. My answer is that I have not been in contact with them for some time and am "out of date" as to their capabilities. Or perhaps if it is someone I recently worked with I would say that the individual has not talked to me about being a reference and therefore I do not feel comfortable with providing such information or opinion.

In a hot market, occasionally an employer might hire a headhunter to canvas it's own employees in order to check the likelihood of retention or turnover. If you do decide give an opinion, be honest. As SomptingGuy indicates, the truth is easier to deal with.

Regards,

 

[RalphChristie]

Tell the truth - you may loose credibility if you don't.

If your name where on the list of the headhunters, and your co-worker was asked to give his opinion of you, what would you want him to say?

In the end it is still his choice if he wants to take an offer or not.

Regards
Ralph

[red]Failure seldom stops us, it is the fear for failure that stops us - Jack Lemmon[/red]

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[joebk]

There is a another good reason to either tell the truth or decline - the possibility of legal action. I have been strongly cautioned by our corporate lawyer to never ever give a bad reference even if it is the truth. Politely refusing to act as a reference is the best thing to do.

Basically, our lawyers indicated in a memo that you are free to give a bad reference and are within your rights to do so. BUT you better be double damn sure that it is based on hard evidence and is not based on personal issues, opinions, discriminatory info, etc. Even then, this can be very risky.

Even if a bad reference is based on fact a civil suit claiming defamation of character can be brought against you on the grounds that the information you gave was bogus and resulted in lost opportunity (i.e. $$). Even if the action doesn't have a legal leg to stand on and is extremely difficult to prove, it can be very costly to deal with.

Your statement ""Protect" the company and paint a "darker" picture in order to have the headhunter loosing its interest" is troubling. To me, this means you will purposely skew the information you give in order to intentionally damage the reputation of the person with the potential employer for the sole purpose of preventing him/her from getting a job.

IMO this is unprofessional and could constitute slander/libel depending on how this information is communicated.

I hope this really is hypothetical.

 

[SomptingGuy]

Has it really gone that far? Would someone sue for defamation of character over a reference? Strewth!

 

[KENAT]

Sompting - Yes it has gone that far, and not just in the US. I was told the same thing in the UK before I moved to the US.

It's for this reason that most requests for references, especially if you were the supervisor, should be transferred immediately to HR, who will usually just confirm the dates the person worked there and their job title, or variations there on.

If it's a peer reference it's maybe a little different but as others say, in this case the person should have asked first if you'd mind being a referee.

I have written references for a couple of the interns that have worked in my department, they were kind of peer references though as I wasn't their supervisor.

In the OP case I'd probably keep it brief while bearing in mind the 'do unto others' idea. Certainly don't say anything bad but don't go overboard in praise. For instance I'd probably say "good" or even "competent" not "very good". I'd then probably go and have a conversation with the person about asking first before using me as a reference.

 

[TheTick]

I read this in a column for professional musicians: "Never give unsolicited negative references. Never say negative things about someone that are not true. It will only look bad for you."

If you are the kind of person that needs any kind of incentive to tell the truth (especially when lying is detrimental to another person), then shame on you.

Honesty may be the best policy, but insanity is a better defense.

http://www.EsoxRepublic.com

-SolidWorks API VB programming help

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

SomptingGuy ... What would you do if you found out that someone had lied about you, or your capabilities, resulting in a detrimental affect on your career? Would you not seek some sort of recompense ... or at least want to have the record set straight?

Headhunters have ways of obtaining names of colleagues/associates of the head they are hunting without being them being referenced by the head. I once had a former colleague contact me and complain that I had not asked his permission to be used as a reference. He had given me a good ref but was disgruntled enough to call me. I had not given his name to anyone and was not even actively job hunting at the time. Turns out the headhunter was just doing her own research for future placements.

Always tell the truth or it will come back to bite you one day when you least expect it.

 

[KENAT]

Question to the OP, if you had a better relationship with the person would you even be asking this question?

I've got to admit my knee jerk reaction if it was a friend would be to give a glowing reference without a second thought.

If on the other hand it was someone I'd worked with but wasn't close to then I'd probably think it through more, about how they didn't ask me etc.

Not sure what that says about me!

CBL may have a point to about headhunters doing their own research, perhaps some of us were a bit harsh.

 

[SomptingGuy]

CBL:

I don't think I'd work for a company that used headhunters to wring references out of current or former colleagues of mine. I'd more likely put forward my own references after having contacted them beforehand if asked when applying for a new job.

I'm not sure what I'd do if a mysterious black mark appeared on my career record. I don't think I'd be staight off to find a lawyer though! Anyway, I thought slander/libel had to be public to be illegal rather than a private disclosure from one person to another.

 

[HgTX]

"I don't think I'd work for a company that used headhunters to wring references out of current or former colleagues of mine."

...that you know of.

Hg

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[SylvestreW]

Why would your co-worker provide your name without asking first and letting you know?
Either way, I also agree with other posters, be honest or decline, with the latter being preferable.

In addition, I'd let your co-worker know that you were contacted and declined. At least if he didn't know about it, he does now; and if he did know, he'll realize that what he did wasn't professional.

 

[TheTick]

Why would it even occur to you to cut your colleague's throat for the benefit of a company that would discard you without a second thought?

 

[MedicineEng]

Well guys:
This is just a hypothetical situation. Never happened to me and I hope it never will. Also in my OP I assumed that as CBL pointed out, it was the headhunter making his research and trying to obtain some information and not the co-worker that gave you as a reference without asking permission.
Let make things a little bit more complicated:
Let's imagine that you know that if this engineer leaves to another company his work will go into your desk and in the end it will be you to make double work (at least until they find another engineer).Let's say also that you are above 50 and despite the market is hot for engineers, as we all know, it is much more difficult for a professional above 50 to get another work when compared with one of 35.
In this case, it would be also in your self-interest to retain the engineer in the company, wouldn't you agree?

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

No matter what the scenario, the headhunter should be told the truth about the engineers capabilities. Don't lie. You are an engineer, not a politician.

If you were that engineer, would you want someone to prevent you from obtaining a great/better job just because it would temporarily mean more work for them?

The fact you (hypothetically speaking) were not asked for permission is immaterial to the question of whether you should lie or tell the truth. If not being asked annoys you that much, contact the engineer and let them know. If they apologise sincerely, great, no real harm done. If they don't offer an apology, then decline any future calls for refs.

I agree with TheTick, and I'm surprised that a "should I lie or not" question is actually being asked in an ethics forum.
I'm even more surprised at how many responses have been more wrapped up with the not-being-asked aspect rather than the lie/don't lie one.

 

[IRstuff]

Your inability to summarily reject lying about someone, whatever the provocation or justification, speaks volumes about your own character, I think.

The desire to retain an employee can be met by other means, without resorting to ill-conceived and immoral behavior.



TTFN

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