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If You're Fired, Will Past Employers
Keep Your Secret?
By Bonnie Lowe
 Despite what some job seekers think, it is not
illegal for former employers to tell reference checkers that you were fired.
They can say anything they want as long as it's true.
But many companies do have policies that limit what they will reveal about
past employees.
Is this a good thing or a bad thing?
I was watching an episode of CBS's "60 Minutes" recently (hmmm, maybe I
watch too much TV; no wait, this is "research," so it's OK). They had a
shocking story about a male hospital worker who is suspected of killing more
than 40 patients in several different hospitals during the past decade. He
pleaded guilty to two of the murders.
That is very disturbing by itself... but what makes this story so incredibly
worse is that his employers unwittingly helped him do it! This guy had been
fired many times for a variety of reasons -- hoarding potentially harmful
drugs, illegally administering unprescribed treatments, being negligent with
patients -- and other alarming actions. He'd even been convicted of
something (I can't recall the charge).
Yet he never had a problem getting another job at another hospital. Why?
Because his former employers all had policies that prevented them from
providing any information about past employees, other than job titles and
dates of employment.
Apparently the hospital's lawyers were trying to protect them from lawsuits
that could possibly result if something negative (and not proven as fact)
was said about a past employee which prevented that employee from obtaining
another job.
So even though references were checked, they revealed nothing about this
criminal's activities. And he was passed along from one hospital to the
next, allegedly killing patients in each one until he was finally caught.
This is a very extreme example of how such personnel policies are, in my
opinion, doing more harm than good. This sword cuts both ways, after all. If
you've done a truly exceptional job for your past employer, wouldn't you
want that employer to be free to confirm your glowing accomplishments during
a reference check?
Things are changing, thank goodness. According to the Society of Human
Resource Management, employers are conducting more criminal checks than ever
before. The need to provide a safe workplace is helping to drive this
increase. Plus companies that were once worried about being sued by a former
employee over a bad reference are now more concerned about being sued by an
employer who wasn't warned about a bad employee!
Regardless of the threat of lawsuits (don't get me started on that), the
bottom line for job seekers is that you should not assume your former
employer will only provide your dates of employment and job title. If you
were fired, it may be revealed. If you were an outstanding employee, it may
be revealed.
If you're unsure of what your past employer's policy is, call them and find
out. It's a good thing to know!
--------------------------------Bonnie Lowe is author of the popular
Job Interview Success System and free information-packed ezine, "Career-Life Times." Find those and other powerful career-building resources and tips at her website:
http://www.best-interview-strategies.com.
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