Asklemmy

43984 readers

823 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

Open-ended question
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
!lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

Have any of you ever called your previous job/landlord to see what kind of reference they would give you? (leminal.space)

submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) by CorrodedCranium@leminal.space to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

23 comments fedilink hide all child comments

You'd probably need someone else to call on your behalf. If you have, how did it turn out?

Edit: There seems to be some confusion about what I'm asking. I'm not talking about fake references. I'm talking about calling your reference on the sly to see if they're actually going to give you a positive review.

For example things don't go well with your landlord and you suspect they're going to depict you as bad tenant when you put them down as a reference while looking for a new place.

The same thing could be said for bosses and jobs.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] peter 16 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I'm not sure what it's like in other countries but in the UK most of the time they will not be able to say anything bad about you even if you were awful

[–] CorrodedCranium@leminal.space 6 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Really? How come?

[–] 200ok@lemmy.world 11 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Not OP, but I heard that if you don't get a job because of a bad reference, and you can prove they were misleading, then you can sue them for defamation.

Many people don't want to take the risk, or say, "I'd rather not comment on x".

[–] Crashumbc@lemmy.world 9 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Exactly, most larger company's HR departments beat into the managers. You only give out that they worked there, their position, and how long

[–] OutlierBlue@lemmy.ca 3 points 10 months ago

I've also heard it's common to ask if they are eligible for rehire. It's an easy way to get a feel for them without any actual details that could bite you.

[–] xilliah@beehaw.org 3 points 10 months ago

In Germany a reference must be written in a kind manner by law. So there's this codified language called Zeugnissprache, or reference language.

For example she carried out her tasks with care can mean she's inefficient.