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Best Buy HR Manager: "Don't hire him, he sucks"
On January 30, 2008 by Jamie Madigan
This is an interesting story about how NOT to do reference checks. When a former Manager at superretailer Best Buy was fired, he went on to apply at a few big box stores. When he abruptly ran up against the stone wall of rejection after a couple of promising starts, he got suspicious and did a little sleuthing. He faked an e-mail from a Target employee and e-mailed his former employer asking for a reference.
According to the lawsuit that followed these shenanigans, the Best Buy District Human Resources Manager allegedly replied thusly:
"I will give you the skinny on him but you can't say you got any info from Best Buy or we can be sued. Just don't hire him and say you went with a better candidate.
"He was hired as GM and demoted after 12 months or so because he sucked. He is desperate for a job because supposedly his wife left him because he has no job. I would not touch him.
"Again, do not forward this e-mail to anybody or say where you heard the info from because we were not allowed to give this info out, but I would hate you to get stuck with this guy!"
Oops, if true.I think there are two lessons here. One, be careful what you put in e-mails. You never know for sure who you're talking to, nor to whom the e-mail will be forwarded.
More importantly, though, the second lesson is that if you give out references on ex-employees, be objective. How much information you give out is up to you and how much legal exposure you can tolerate, but in general keep it objective, quantifiable, and try to avoid the use of the word "suck."
Of course, I'm not a fan of personal references at all. The research I've seen (a couple of articles in refereed journals and a SIOP presentation or two) is pretty clear that they're worthless. There's no variance (i.e., this person at Best Buy aside, almost all references provide nothing but unqualified praise), and they don't predict performance worth a darn.
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