Is there a way to challenge unfair employment references?
Reply Contact A friend has phoned asking my advice about what to do about getting a stinking job reference. He was offered another job and his managers kept the recruiting company waiting for months before sending the reference. When the reference finally arrived the job offer was withdrawn. Although it didn’t explicitly say that my friend was an incompetent liability, the reference clearly suggested that he was not up to the job. My friend has addressed this with the managers responsible and asked them to produce evidence from his performance record to support the remarks in the reference. So far they have fobbed him off by saying that it was a good reference and they can’t see what the problem is. An employment lawyer I consulted said that employers providing a reference are under no obligation to prove that the comments they make are justified. This leaves it open for vindictive managers to screw up somebody’s career prospects without ever having to justify themselves. If anyone kno
