The thing I’m most concerned about with backdoor references is that we might be exposing the candidate’s job search, without fully realizing or considering the impact of that.

A candidate might be employed and very much need their job—but by us meddling with their references before it’s time, we might be telling other people (or at least suggesting to other people) that this candidate is seeking to leave their current job.

Even if we know the backdoor reference well, we actually have no idea about their relationship with our candidate. Does the reference love or hate that person? Would they have a motivation to get the candidate out of their company for some reason? What politics are happening between the reference’s job or department and the job or department of the candidate?

And what if the backdoor reference mentions that they got a call from us, about them? “Hey, Bob—just got a reference call from Joel at GCG—you thinking about jumping ship?” Ugh. Now the candidate needs to explain their situation—and they really shouldn’t have to. Or what if the backdoor reference mentions this in passing to a third party—unaware that the third party knows the candidate? Who knows what can happen, then. And you have zero control over what that reference does or says.

I view a job hunt as a very sensitive, confidential thing. We should keep a candidate’s search internal to our company until we’re ready to make a hiring decision—and then ask permission to call references.

If the backdoor reference resulting in a candidate’s job hunt being exposed, and resulted in their termination you might be responsible for that, and it might not be defensible.