When giving reference to a sexist - would you care?

I’m being asked to provide “behind the scenes” “reference” on a former co-worker. The person is a guy who’s a sexist. Detailed behaviors include - speaking over people during meetings consistently, picking on people selectively, circulating rumors/gossips internally, sharing internal screenshots about coworkers to external parties, and general harassment claims that were submitted to HR (not physical, but things like calling people to scream at them on weekends, sharing their information with external parties, and monitoring how many questions they submit to sellside analysts/ print). These are all things he only does/did to women analysts on his team, especially if they are people who he believes in his mind, should not have been as successful.


As a PM/ headhunter, would you care? This isn’t general bad behavior, in this case the person is normal toward guys, only like this toward women. 

I have already provided factual feedback on the persons work quality /pnl. The team covers names by industries, so the hiring team can know decently well whether the person is good from outside in any way. (And if you really want to know, it’s mediocre… more losers than winners, but only 1-2 big losers, with the rest just thesis don’t play out/ flat, or down modestly).

If you are a male PM / headhunter, would you care? I can see arguments on both ends - this person is a legal liability waiting to happen, and if someone harasses your female analysts, you are paying them a salary but getting worse performance presumably because they can’t focus on their work as much. On the other hand, you could also just not care and only look at numbers.

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I'm surprised you don't seem to approach this from your own personal interest/reputation perspective.

"this person is a legal liability waiting to happen". If you really believe that, when this guy gets publicly sued for harassment (or such), do you want to be on the record as someone that provided a positive reference and/or didn't flag any risks at all?

Feels like you're hitching your wagon to someone toxic for zero upside and possibly big downside.

 

MMPM

I'm surprised you don't seem to approach this from your own personal interest/reputation perspective.

"this person is a legal liability waiting to happen". If you really believe that, when this guy gets publicly sued for harassment (or such), do you want to be on the record as someone that provided a positive reference and/or didn't flag any risks at all?

Feels like you're hitching your wagon to someone toxic for zero upside and possibly big downside.

Thats a good point.

 

Reads like the guy had a really crappy female analyst on his team who automatically subscribed everything to gender whenever there was a negative comment. Also reads like someone was going to HR and they saw no wrong doing. ‘HR did nothing’ is generally ‘the complaints were likely unwarranted or it’s a very gray area.’ Remember HR works for the company and not for you…

Ultimately, what’s your experience with them. That’s the point of a reference call. Not some tangent that amounts to massive drama where apparently nothing substantial actually occurred.

Only two sources I trust, Glenn Beck and singing woodland creatures.
 

How many women was this behavior directed at? If it was only a couple, you could probably argue that it was just those two specifically who got on his nerves. If it was 5/10+ women, I'd probably say something. 

 

Did you read my comment? Being mean to 1 person means you can find ANY reason to claim they're bigoted. "Oh he treated me like shit because I was 5'7". "Oh he talked over me because of my race", etc. If you want to make claims of bigotry you have to establish a pattern. 


I don't know this guy at all. If you think he's literally a "legal liability waiting to happen", then obviously you should speak up. If you have to go online and ask a bunch of shit-posters what to do...

 

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