What can former employers say?

[eli4625]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? IN

Now that I am back in the job market I am having a number of places I apply ask if they can contact my former employers. First problem is that many of my former supervisors from jobs over 7 years ago are gone, and no one there now even knows whom I am so what can they say? Also what by law are former employers allowed to say? In my former job I was told by superiors that if a someone called asking about a former employee, all I was allowed to say was that he did work there for the time they indicated. I couldn't comment on performance, attitude or such. Is this a law or just how that employer wanted to handle it?

 

[cbg]

That is just how the employer wanted to handle it.

An employer may legally say anything that is true, that they have a good faith belief is true, or that represents their honest and supportable opinion. Although a frighteningly large segment of the population believes in the myth that employers may only provide dates of employment, job title and possibly salary and rehire status, that is all that it is - a myth.