Editor’s note: This article was first published in April 2012. It refers to the Spanish Data Protection Act in force in 2012 (Organic Law 15/1999), which has since been replaced by the GDPR and Organic Law 3/2018.
I’ll start with something that happened to me this very morning. A human resources consultancy called to ask me about a candidate. I had no professional information about the candidate, and the consultant, who is also a friend, suggested I call the workplace where the candidate had been working to gather information about them.
Faced with this, a number of questions come to mind. Are professional references effective? Can any team leader pass on professional information about a candidate’s qualities to a stranger? What information about the candidate should we give? How far do we get involved in our reports? All this, of course, quite apart from the data covered by Spain’s Data Protection Act, which strictly guards personal information that may not be passed on.
Many of the answers will depend on the character of the company being asked for references. Many will have to be weighed carefully because of the purpose they serve. Many will have to be checked with the candidate.
Before answering these questions, one point should be made: any candidate we look into should be told that we are going to ask for references from the previous jobs listed on their CV. We do this out of simple courtesy and respect. If a candidate has exaggerated their references, they themselves will try to stop us from asking third parties about them.
Are professional references effective?
Not 100%. When I have personally been asked for references about a candidate, my spoken answer has been more candid than my written one, which has been completely neutral.
When a candidate leaves a company, it can be for one of two reasons:
- There is no work for them at the time: the answer will be noncommittal, but leaning towards the candidate’s positive side.
- They do not meet the needs of the job: the answer will be noncommittal, but leaning towards the candidate’s negative side.
All this is from the perspective of the company that employed them, whose circumstances may be similar to or different from those the candidate will face in another company. So the information has to be extrapolated; it is not reliable.
Can any team leader pass on professional information about a candidate’s qualities to a stranger?
In recruitment, one of the most common mistakes is to listen to the heart rather than the head. A candidate’s personal relationship with their team means spending a lot of time together, which lets people get to know one another and, most dangerously, form attachments or enmities.
Either way, any answer about a person from someone who is not qualified to give it must be weighed very carefully and examined in depth to find out what it is based on. By this I mean whether the personal assessments rest on objective, demonstrable facts or on personal feelings that come from working side by side every day.
What information about the candidate should we give?
Very carefully, and depending on the medium used to pass the message on. If it is spoken, words are carried away by the wind, as the popular saying goes. But if the answers are written, much more care and attention are needed, because we never know where the answer will end up or what will be done with it.
Bear in mind that professional opinions are protected by the Data Protection Act, and misusing them can cause serious problems for everyone involved.
How far do we get involved in our reports?
It depends on each of us and on how involved we are with the candidate and the company. Remember that when someone asks us for references about a person, they are handing us responsibility for that person’s future.
Our relationship with the candidate may push us towards one answer or another, depending on how fond we are of them and how responsible we feel. The same happens if our relationship is with the company asking us for information: we may give it information based on our feelings, which may match, resemble or differ from the candidate’s professional behaviour in a third company.
Let’s be aware that a candidate is not seen in the same way by each of us, nor do they adapt in the same way to one company or another. And finally, what worked for us will not necessarily work for everyone else, because the environment is different.
Featured image: Antonio Rotta, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
