No job offer after reference check

ScorpiondeRooftrouser

zugzwang wrote: »

Their HR dept say they didn't manage to contact your referees and your two referees say they weren't contacted. So you must conclude there was no contact and references weren't the problem.:)

Their HR dept said the referees hadn't responded, not hadn't been contacted.

Secondly, they may well have contacted other companies on his work history, not his two named referees. There's little point contacting people's named referees; they wouldn't name them unless they were going to be good.

inglorius

ScorpiondeRooftrouser wrote: »

It's thunderously unlikely that you would have got a bad comment from any referee without having any inkling who it was or what it was about.

So, do you have reason to suspect any of the referees likely to have been contacted (not people you named, anyone likely to have been contacted from your last few years of work history) would have given you a bad reference?

I spoke to all of my referees last night, they all said that no contact had been made. You may well be correct, the company could have been in contact with a previous organisation without my knowledge though not sure how prevalent that practice is.

It still leaves a lot of unanswered questions in terms of why the company would ask for references, chase me a week later to nudge them to reply and then not even try to make contact and not progress my application.

Gavin83

inglorius wrote: »

I spoke to all of my referees last night, they all said that no contact had been made. You may well be correct, the company could have been in contact with a previous organisation without my knowledge though not sure how prevalent that practice is.

It still leaves a lot of unanswered questions in terms of why the company would ask for references, chase me a week later to nudge them to reply and then not even try to make contact and not progress my application.

Well maybe what they told you is accurate, the requirements for the job changed and you were no longer suitable for the post? Or maybe they just had a change of heart. It does appear that references weren't gained. You'll unlikely to ever find out anything beyond what you've been told so I'd take it at face value and move on.

FBaby

Another possibility: Boss X was on holiday. He comes back and he is briefed about the interview. He asks to review the applicants details. He picks up that that person will need to work on project Z using software W, of which you have no experience. They realise their error, they decide you're not the right person for the job.