Why Good Candidates Get Poor References

Part two of three on getting real value out of reference checks.

A lukewarm reference feels like a clear signal. Someone who worked with this person is not enthusiastic about them, and that seems like the kind of information you should act on.

Sometimes it is. But in over twenty years of making these calls, I have learnt that a poor reference frequently says as much about the person giving it as it does about the candidate — and if you cannot tell the difference, you will pass on good people.

Here are the situations I encounter most often.

The employer took the resignation personally

This one is more common than most people would expect, and it is rarely acknowledged.

A candidate resigns. The employer, particularly in a smaller business where the relationship was close, experiences it as a rejection rather than a career decision. Perhaps they had invested in this person. Perhaps they had made assumptions about loyalty. Perhaps the departure caused real operational pain.

Six weeks later, someone phones for a reference.

What comes back is technically accurate and noticeably cool. The referee is not lying — they are simply speaking from a position of residual hurt about a decision that had nothing to do with the candidate’s ability.

The signal to watch for is a reference where the factual answers are fine, the tone is flat, and no specific criticism is ever actually articulated, or is personal, rather than professional feedback.

A personality clash is being reported as a performance issue

Two people did not get on. It happens in every workplace. But when one of them is giving a reference on the other, the friction very often gets translated into the language of performance.

“We had different working styles” becomes “she was not a team player”. “He challenged my decisions” becomes “he was difficult to manage”.

The way through this is specificity. Ask what the person actually did. Behaviour can be assessed against your own environment; a characterisation cannot. A candidate who pushed back on decisions might have been genuinely obstructive — or might be exactly the person you need in a team that currently agrees with everything.

The referee barely knew them

You reach an HR representative who joined after the candidate left, or a manager who oversaw forty people and had limited direct contact.

What you get is cautious, non-committal and thin. It reads as reserved. It is actually just uninformed.

Always establish the working relationship early in the call. How closely did you work together, and for how long? A tepid reference from someone with minimal exposure to the candidate should carry almost no weight at all.

Company policy limits what can be said

Many larger organisations now restrict references to confirmation of dates and job title. Some prohibit any commentary at all.

This is not a hidden warning. It is a legal risk position, applied to everyone equally. Do not read a bare confirmation as reticence — but do note that it means this particular reference gives you very little, and you will need to weight your other checks accordingly.

The candidate was a poor fit rather than a poor employee

Someone who struggled in a rigid, process-heavy environment may be excellent in an agile one. Someone who underperformed under a manager who gave no direction may thrive under one who does. Someone whose role changed under them may have been managed out of a job they were originally good at.

A reference reports how the person performed in that context. It does not tell you how they will perform in yours. When you hear about difficulties, ask what the environment was like — and then ask yourself honestly whether your environment is the same one.

There was a difficult exit for reasons unrelated to their work

Retrenchments handled badly. Disputes over notice or final pay. A CCMA matter. Grievances raised before departure.

Any of these can sour the tone of a reference completely, while telling you almost nothing about how the person did their job. It is worth remembering that a candidate who raised a legitimate grievance may well be the person in the story who behaved correctly.

So what do you actually do?

Not “ignore bad references”. That would be the wrong lesson.

Weight them properly instead.

• Always take at least two references, and preferably from different employers. One negative reference against two positive ones from comparable roles is an outlier. The same concern raised twice is a pattern.
• Establish the relationship before you weigh the content. Closeness and recency determine how much a view is worth.
• Press for behaviour. If a criticism cannot be reduced to something the person actually did, treat it as opinion.
• Separate hard findings from soft ones. Dishonesty, theft and formal disciplinary findings sit in a different category and should not be discounted on the basis of a personality clash theory.

And keep the whole exercise in proportion. A reference is one input. Criminal and credit checks where the role warrants them, qualification verification, psychometric assessment and a properly structured second interview all exist for good reason.

In the final post in this series, I look at what to do when a reference raises something real but manageable — and how to use probation for the purpose it was actually designed for.