Hi, I’m Andrew and I’m not sure if this is your area of expertise but I’d be intrested to see what you think.

I recently was offerd a job with a company. I said yes and they said they would check my refrences. I gave them two and today human resorces phoned and asked for another refrence. This has got me worried that my old company has said something bad about me. The employer I had listed was from a company I left about two years ago and my manager had changed since then so im not sure weather its because no one remmembers me or if I got a bad reference. I didnt do anything wrong at the job. I am now starting to think maybe i shouldn’t take this job as I feel bad things may have been said and that they might think I’m no good. Do you think I should turn this down? I didnt ask them why they wanted another refrence. If I did ask, would they have told me? Many thanks Andrew

Hi Andrew.

-Dr. Mac

Is there any way a person can research a company and the higher ups when you get offered a job or even before you’re offered the job? So, the above situations don’t happen.

-Kelley

Hi Kelley. You can tell something about a company from an outsider perspective by googling the company name and following any press releases that the links take you to. You can also get the names of the company officers from both the company website and through the googling effort I already mentioned. Then google the individual names of the officers to see what kind of information comes up and follow that information (by looking at any links associated with a particular name). And lastly, you might be able to locate the company’s annual shareholder report (if it is a public company) on the company website or by googling the company. All of these efforts should give you a “feel” for the company to assess if it has been successful and managed well. The other perspective that reveals a lot about a company is from the employees that currently work there. You can get that oftentimes by asking particular questions in an interview (should you get one) or if you happen to know someone who works there. I believe both perspectives are important. I took a job once with a very reputable company and failed to talk with any of the employees. The job ended up being a disaster. I learned my lesson to say the least.

-Dr. Mac