Rejected because of references
Curious - have anyone been rejected because of behind the back references?
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Yes happens all the time. People love to back channel references. You will never know that’s why you didn’t get the offer of course.
What would be considered a bad reference? Is a ok reference considered poor? Would be good to understand the bar to passing these reference checks
It's a small world, people have all sorts of friends at banks or other firms. While the references you list might all say normal or nice things about you, a problematic reference would be someone calling their buddy and their buddy saying you're bottom bucket, don't do quality work, etc.
Basically if you have any dirty laundry I wouldn't be surprised if it gets aired. You won't ever hear about it, these are "we went with another candidate" situations, but they happen. If I know people in a candidate's group I 1000% do a vibe check with them, pretty much anyone would. On the flip side, most people won't talk shit about you unless you are truly disliked across the group, so I wouldn't be too paranoid if you generally have good standing at work.
Kind of going through this right now, got let go from my most recent gig, but got a new job very quick. Now I’m recruiting again, and thinking about just being up front about it.
The spot wasn’t for me, culture was bad up and down the fund. Over 16 months we had 9 people leave, I was 10… had a culture survey that had our staffer and HR get into a back and forth. Hopefully I just get this new gig without it coming up but kind of nervous
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