I would give you a heads of but I would like to keep my head.

November 1, 2010 10:43 AM

I am in the process of applying for a new job. I have not told my current employer that I am doing so. I would prefer that my new perspective employer not contact my current one. What do you do when they say they will need to?

I may have an interview coming up for a very good position in a high paced environment. The person who forwarded my resume said the interviewer my eventually have to contact my employer. Even if this particular job doesn't come through, it will probably come up again.

My boss (the owner/ manager of the retail store in which I work) can be pretty moody, holds a grudge for drama's sake, and is a compulsive non-truth teller. It is NOT that this place can not survive without me. However, the truth is that we are about to be at the height of our busiest season and I am the only full time hold-down-the-fort long time employee/ assistant manager they have and leaving now would put a strain on things for them (we are a very small staff of about 10, the owner is there all the time as well). I would like to think my boss would give me a glowing recommendation, but it will depend on his mood that day. If I ended up not getting the position that an interviewer called about, I would bear the brunt of the bosses anger for the rest of the season. I would give the boss the heads up, but a couple of other staff members did that and the boss went on a rant about how unprofessional it was, started looking for reasons why they should be fired, and tried to make us feel badly for the position the boss was in- not knowing if they would have to hire some one new.

So how do you put a positive spin on this in an interview without disparaging your current boss to a potential employer? Can you ask them to lie on your behalf and mention when they call that it is for a part time position? That seems unsavory as well. What do you do? Posted anon just in case.

posted by anonymous to Work & Money (4 answers total)

In general when a prospective employer needs to contact your current employer it is to confirm your salary, position, and dates of employment which is something that HR can do. The only reason why they would contact your boss directly would be if you listed your boss as a reference (although maybe the person who forwarded your resume could clarify for this particular case?)

We recently hired someone who listed her current boss as a reference, but asked that we didn't contact her until she was given an offer. We gave her a conditional offer, depending on the reference once we were able to contact her boss. This is done routinely and wasn't an issue.

When you have your interview, you could be honest and tell them that your boss would be upset if you left and you prefer that he/she wasn't contacted directly unless they were planning on offering you the position.
posted by Kimberly at 10:55 AM on November 1, 2010 [1 favorite]

Yes, conditional offer is fine. Every time I changed jobs, I asked for discretion with contacting references until an offer was made. This is pretty normal.
posted by Geckwoistmeinauto at 11:11 AM on November 1, 2010

A prospective new employer must never, ever contact your current boss unless a job offer has been made and accepted. To do otherwise is a serious breach of professional etiquette, not to mention common decency. For obvious reasons. The way you handle this is to refuse to give your current employer as a reference until such an offer has been made and accepted. Should the prospective employer demur, they are not someone you want to be working for.
posted by Decani at 1:41 PM on November 1, 2010 [1 favorite]

Tell them not to.
posted by tel3path at 3:56 PM on November 1, 2010