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Re:Activision Blizzard pushes out dozens of employees over w... by etchalon on Tuesday January 18, 2022 @12:01AM (#29975326)
Personal references are protected, to the extent that liable and slander laws would apply.

Any HR person / lawyer will tell you providing a negative review of an employee, let alone with amount of detail, opens you up to liabilities that aren't worth it.

As an employer, I've been told that, if called, I should only provide the date a person started with the company, the date a person left, their starting and ending salaries (murky now given salary history laws) and whether they'd be eligible to be re-hired.

I ask any employee we fire for cause not to list us as a reference.

Re:Activision Blizzard pushes out dozens of employees over w... by amyjess on Tuesday January 18, 2022 @01:18AM (#29975761)
> whether they'd be eligible to be re-hired

"Bob isn't eligible for rehire. Wait, I think the line cut out a bit there, I said Bob isn't eligible for rehire. Just wanted to make sure you got that: Bob is not eligible for rehire, no way, no how, nosirree."

Re:Activision Blizzard pushes out dozens of employees over w... by eru on Tuesday January 18, 2022 @01:33AM (#29975857)
Keep in mind: the judges that interpret the law are humans, not computers.
Re:Activision Blizzard pushes out dozens of employees over w... by etchalon on Tuesday January 18, 2022 @01:09PM (#29983190)
I try not to even have a "tone" when I saw that. Completely neutral. No implications.
Re:Activision Blizzard pushes out dozens of employees over w... by CheezeIt on Tuesday January 18, 2022 @12:54AM (#29975628)
Will they give you a magnitude attached to those liabilities? Anybody can falsely sue for defamation, so you need an average cost value beyond the mere possibility of lawsuit to get a true representation of the problem.
Re:Activision Blizzard pushes out dozens of employees over w... by xsmasher on Tuesday January 18, 2022 @01:13AM (#29975731)
The cost may be minimal, but the value of giving a bad reference is zero.