Hi David,
I'm wading through paperwork trying to find a new developer, and almost half have this in their referees section. From my side it sounds like too much and puts me off, particularly since it is usually the last section perused.
Can someone explain the reasoning behind this that I am not understanding please? I don't know whether this is common in US, but here is my French point of view:
Most IT consulting companies in France are or behave like body-shoppers, mainly because of specific local employment habits and legal conditions. One of their most common assets is to organize fake interviews where only goal is to obtain direct coordinates of customers' project managers from candidates so as to offer their services. This is not systematic, but really common, especially when no specific mission is foreseen, although of course IT consulting may hire too in prevision of future projects to come, so it is really hard to check.
Anyway as a French I wouldn't ever give my referals to a consulting company because:
_ It is illegal in France to enquire about a former employee in his former companies. The hiring company may anyway
test candidate at will and has a 3 to 6 months testing period for evaluating the candidate so as to validate hire, so no good reason to ask anything to his former employers. But of course, in case candidate is involved in some kind of felony, making him a riskful person to hire, employer is free to ask for his public file to justice for potential criminal records.
_ I don't want to bother my past project managers, as I want to keep good relations with them, so I won't ever give their private coordinates to a third party.
_ I don't want to take the risk of getting an interview for nothing (assuming it is a fake one), so if giving my referals is mandatory I refuse the interview.
Best regards.
Eric LEMAITRE
CNAM IT Engineer, MS/CS (RHCE, RHCX, SCJA, SCJP, SCJD, SCWCD, SCBCD, SCEA, Net+)
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