What Is a Previous Employer Allowed to Say During a Reference?
In tough economic times, any negative item on your resume or a bad reference can cost you a job. If you have anything in your past that could damage your chances at future employment, such as a termination, your previous employer can probably legally tell a hiring manager. Sometimes, employers are willing to omit damaging information about your past out of fear of litigation.
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Identification
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A previous employer can say anything it wants about you as long as it is true, according to Lawyers.com. However, the employer usually needs evidence to back up a claim. For instance, if you were terminated from a previous job due to poor performance, the employer would need an appraisal that corroborates the story or some other written document.
Limitations
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There are some limits to what a previous employer can say about you even if it is true. A previous employer cannot blacklist you in 20 states as of 2010, such as California and Texas. For example, an employer cannot tell a recruiter not to hire you or put you on a list of candidates it will never hire for any position. The employer must keep your personal information private, such as who you dated in the past, and comments can cross the line into defamation. For instance, the employer cannot report a rumor about you to a potential employer.
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Considerations
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In general, employers try to limit any negative statements about an employee or anything that might be construed as negative to avoid a possible lawsuit from a former employee, according to Paul W. Barada of Monster. Some companies restrict job information revealed in a reference check to purely objective data, such as your dates of employment, pay rate and job title.
Improving References
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Nothing restricts what information a potential employer can request about an applicant. For example, your hiring manager might ask the employer if it would rehire you again, which avoids potential defamation and gives an indication of your performance. Thus, it is better to do your best at a previous job and try to receive commendations and achieve goals for the employer to talk about. Also, most employers run a background check on you, so it can use that to corroborate information about your past.
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