Company Soliciting References for Employment -HUH?

[lectech]

What is the name of your state? South Carolina

My wife applied for a job for a subsidiary of a LARGE company. As part of the applicaton, she include three references, which included her former supervisors and coworkers.

She was horrified to learn that the company called at least one of the references, not to speak of my wife's employment history, but to ask the reference if she might be interested in a job.

Question: When you provide an employer with a list of references, isn't it implied that the references are given for the express purpose of verifying past performance / employment history?

I have never heard of a company using someone's employment references to create a pool of potential employees. I'd liken it to putting someone's references in a mailing list to receive unsolicited junk-mail. My wife now finds herself in the position of having to call her references and forewarn/apologize to them.

Thanks in advance for any insight.
-Brian H.

 

[HomeGuru]

What is the name of your state? South Carolina

My wife applied for a job for a subsidiary of a LARGE company. As part of the applicaton, she include three references, which included her former supervisors and coworkers.

She was horrified to learn that the company called at least one of the references, not to speak of my wife's employment history, but to ask the reference if she might be interested in a job.

Question: When you provide an employer with a list of references, isn't it implied that the references are given for the express purpose of verifying past performance / employment history?

**A: yes, but there is no law restricting the conversation to just that.
They can talk about the weather, President Bush, Hurricane Katrina, the new Rolling Stones CD, safe sex............

*************

I have never heard of a company using someone's employment references to create a pool of potential employees. I'd liken it to putting someone's references in a mailing list to receive unsolicited junk-mail. My wife now finds herself in the position of having to call her references and forewarn/apologize to them.

Thanks in advance for any insight.
-Brian H.

**A: common courtesy anyway to give a heads up.

 

[Beth3]

When you provide an employer with a list of references, isn't it implied that the references are given for the express purpose of verifying past performance / employment history? Yes, but it's not illegal, just unethical. I'd never heard of this happening before until an acquaintance told me of an idential situation just last week - a prospective employer used her list of references to solicit business and she too had to call these individuals up to explain and apolgize.