Should my personal experience affect someone getting a job?

TBagpuss

interviews are not confidential - the employer is free to canvas opinion from their staff if they want, and asking about someone's former colleague is perfectly reasonable.

sangie595

TBagpuss wrote: »

interviews are not confidential - the employer is free to canvas opinion from their staff if they want, and asking about someone's former colleague is perfectly reasonable.

No, it isn't reasonable. There are interview processes put in place to give all candidates an equal opportunity. Nobody has any idea about the other candidates because nobody knows them. They could be dreadful. But you don't find that out until after. It is unfair to treat gossip about one person as part of the interview process. And this is highly subjective gossip. There is no way to ascertain the motivation or even the veracity of what is said by someone gossiping about a candidate. A company sets down an interview process, and if gossip is to be part of it, then that should be out in the open. It may not be a legal requirement to maintain confidentiality around interviews, but it is certainly an implied duty and may be against many company policies.

Simply because people do it doesn't make it right. Answering the question is simply indulging in the nastiest form of gossip because it is behind the persons back and will impact on their employment prospects. Just because one person didn't like her a decade ago.

Masomnia

I'm inclined to agree with Sangie.

I certainly wouldn't bring 'pub talk' into it.

Perhaps if you viewed it how you would view a job reference, ie. could you comment on their professional capabilities with things you could back up if you had to? Maybe then consider it.

On the other hand if you say something too negative/personal and she gets the job and performs you just look vindictive. If you're positive and she's crap then it reflects on you... I'd evade it as diplomatically as possible.

kiddy_guy

Disagree entirely

Internally if somebody wanted to recruit across depts, you'd have a few off record conversations about suitability and experience with people who'd managed or worked with that person that you as a manager would trust for their opinions and also not to say anything.

Equally however for an external candidate you want to ensure that candidate is varying forms of suitable - competent, trustworthy, a team player etc...

If I was in the OP position, I would happily state, assuming the interviewing manager wasn't ever going to quote me, that I couldn't recommend the candidate. That's not to say you are damning the candidate, but based upon your view, you cannot offer a positive opinion, which is accurate. Or refuse to offer an opinion ,saying you find it hard to offer a fair judgment based on what they were like 10 years ago (whilst making it clear that you're absolutely offering the view you wouldnt hire by the very fact you wont pass comment). You can say a lot by not saying much.

You spend too long at work watching out who's there trying to climb the greasy pole and tread on you. Why encourage another person who you cant trust?

bugslet

Whilst sangie (and nice to see you back), is probably right, I'll still stand by my thoughts that I don't want to members of staff that don't get on with each other working for me. If it's a huge organisation and they never meet then it doesn't matter. A smallish firm, which I presume this is???, and there's a bad atmosphere.

sangie595

bugslet wrote: »

Whilst sangie (and nice to see you back), is probably right, I'll still stand by my thoughts that I don't want to members of staff that don't get on with each other working for me. If it's a huge organisation and they never meet then it doesn't matter. A smallish firm, which I presume this is???, and there's a bad atmosphere.

Thank you, and I hear what you are saying but...

Read back to the OP, instead of what people's opinions are. The OP says very clearly that they don't know whether she was lying and the manager said something to her. Their opinion is based on their own assumptions about a person which they don't know to be true; flavored by the fact that they obviously didn't like the fact that their own line manager took to her and mentored her; with a slice of personal prejudice on the side - the OP never trusted her, and admits that her reputation as a gossip is in their eyes only! How do we know that the manager was not manipulative, a liar, or simply stirring things to benefit themselves?

This is why interview processes exist - to eliminate, as far as possible, to purely subjective and random gossip and prejudice. Obviously this point of view is not shared - she is still close to the former manager, and to a number of former colleagues. Or is that, perhaps, another part of the problem - other people like her? And the OP didn't.

Managing relationships is part of the manager's job. Presumably the OP also doubts that managers ability to manage a new member of staff and take action if appropriate? Because otherwise, why is decade old unreliable information even relevant ? And for all they know, the other person is a dreadful person - they simply haven't met them or worked with them.

And as for another poster suggesting that it is ok provided the interviewing manager isn't going to quote them as saying it - well, as I said, isn't that the problem here? The OP is suggesting that they should gossip about someone behind their back, based on nothing but personal prejudice. What does that say about the OP if they are willing to do that? In what way are they any better than the person they appear to be judging?

Anyway, I suspect it is all moot and was all moot before the thread even started. It would be slightly odd that the OP was asked such a question and responded by saying that that they'd get back to them on the matter but needed to nip off and canvas opinions on what they should say. I suspect the post was more about validating what they have already done and had a sneaking suspicion want a good thing to do. In which case they've had a few people tell them it was ok, but I'm not going to be doing that. Blighting someone's job opportunity because of your own prejudice about something in the distant past is a pretty nasty thing to do in my book.

LannieDuck

Don't bring the pub-salary discussion into it. You say yourself that your ex-line manager was a bit odd - it's entirely possible that he was stirring things, and she decided to be open with you about what he was saying instead of leaving it as whispers behind your back. I'd rather work with someone who was upfront about things like that.

The gossiping is a bit different since you say it happened repeatedly and you witnessed it yourself. You could perhaps mention that. But don't make a big deal of it, it was 8 years ago.

Jestified

Thanks for all the interesting feedback. This wasn’t a case of me having already told them my honest thoughts then seeking validation here. The reason I took the time to come here for advice is because there was a casual conversation this week between the hiring manager and his peer who both sit across from me, discussing her being the stronger of the two. Then the hiring manager asked me as he was getting up from his desk to go somewhere else if I knew the person because he could see from her credentials that we had once worked together, which I confirmed (I already knew she had interviewed because I’d seen her name on one of the meeting appointments with the word 'interview' next to it), and he said he might want a chat with me about her, and then he was off. A couple of hours later, he sent me a text saying along the lines of, “so-and-so was very good, what do you think of her?” I replied to say, “let’s have a chat when you’re back.”

Yesterday we caught up again, and I told him that she is a competent individual and capable for the role, whilst making clear that it was a long time ago that we’d worked together and were quite junior back then. I decided against divulging anything else, for the reason that I didn’t want it to come back and bite me if she was offered the job, she accepts, and succeeds here, leaving me with egg on my face. At the end of the day, she won’t be in my team and she’ll have a different line manager to me, so it’s not my call. Had I been involved and found her at CV sift stage, I might’ve discarded her then. But this has given me food for thought on how to approach this in the future. I’m not a vindictive person, but I am curious as to the psychology of people who do eventually come across those they’ve had controversial encounters with and what they do about it if they are in a position to have the casting vote, because as part of my role, I will probably be required to build a team in the near future and will likely have other known candidates apply.

Scorpio33

Interesting response.

I have been thinking and the question I ask you is: Was it only you that had this issue with her or were there (many) others with the same issue?

If it was just you with this issue, then it was probably your own perceptions of her rather than anything else, in which case it was better to do as you have done: ie: say nothing.

However, if there were many other people who also had the same issue you had, then it would have been better to say something now to the hiring manager as there would clearly be more to it than just your view point,

TBagpuss

sangie595 wrote: »

No, it isn't reasonable. There are interview processes put in place to give all candidates an equal opportunity. Nobody has any idea about the other candidates because nobody knows them. They could be dreadful. But you don't find that out until after. It is unfair to treat gossip about one person as part of the interview process. And this is highly subjective gossip. There is no way to ascertain the motivation or even the veracity of what is said by someone gossiping about a candidate. A company sets down an interview process, and if gossip is to be part of it, then that should be out in the open. It may not be a legal requirement to maintain confidentiality around interviews, but it is certainly an implied duty and may be against many company policies.

Simply because people do it doesn't make it right. Answering the question is simply indulging in the nastiest form of gossip because it is behind the persons back and will impact on their employment prospects. Just because one person didn't like her a decade ago.

I did make the point that thye don't know about the other candidates and also that if Op speaks out at all she should aim to be quiteclear about the limitations of her knowledge. However, it's similar to making reference enquiries, and where you know that a potenatil candidate has a previous hsitory with people they will have to work with it is very relevant to the decision.

My view in this case waas that the example that Op gave was so old and seemed to be more aboutthe amanger than thatapplicant so it isn't something which in my view should be presented in a way likely to effect the candidate's chances, but the *general* issue of asking about previous experience of working with a prospective co-worker is not unreasonable or inappropriate. It's not gossip, it's due diligence, in the same way that checking references is.
And there would be nothing to stop you asking the candidate about any specifc issues which came up.