Most executives brief their references carefully, and the person deciding on their candidacy can still call someone they never listed. This month we look at the reference calls candidates never hear about, and at how the way you handle disagreement today shapes what gets said about you years from now.
You Choose Your References. You Don’t Choose Who Gets Called.
You are a COO finalist, and your three references are ready. Each one has been briefed on the turnaround you led. What you do not know is that the CEO making the decision once worked alongside your CFO from two hospitals ago, and on Thursday afternoon she picks up the phone and calls him. He was not on your list.
That call is a backdoor reference. You never approved it, and you will probably never learn it happened.
Your List Is Where the Check Starts, Not Where It Ends
The references you provide were selected by you, and every hiring executive knows it.
When one hiring decision can shape a hospital’s finances and culture for years to come, the people making that decision want to hear from someone who has no stake at all in your candidacy. Healthcare makes that easy.
Board members sit on multiple boards. Physician and nurse leaders move between systems, and LinkedIn shows a hiring executive exactly who overlapped with you and when, so an unfiltered opinion of your work can be two mutual connections away.
A current employer should be off-limits, because a call there can put your job at risk before you have an offer. The organizations you worked for before are a different story.
The People Who Get Called Worked With You Up Close
A backdoor call rarely goes to a stranger. It goes to someone who saw your work firsthand.
- The boss you left off. If the CEO you reported to in your previous role is missing from your references, a hiring executive will notice the gap and may go find out why.
- Peers across the table. The CFO who fought you over capital budgets and the CMO who co-led a service line with you both know how you behave without formal authority.
- Former direct reports. They describe how you lead when no one above you is watching and hiring executives tend to trust that account.
- Physician leaders. Medical staff leaders remember who kept their promises on staffing and schedules, and they talk to each other across systems.
Your Reputation Was Formed Long Before the Interview
A backdoor reference has nothing to do with how well you interview. The person on the other end of that call is describing what you were like to work with years ago, an opinion formed in ordinary moments like a budget meeting that ran long or a project that competed with theirs for staff. That opinion is already settled.
You will not agree with everyone you work with, and you should not try to. A leader who never disagrees is of little use to a hospital that needs hard calls made on staffing and capital every quarter. What people remember is not whether you disagreed. They remember how.
Disagree About the Issue, and Explain Why
There is a difference between a leader who disagrees and a leader who is disagreeable. The first is remembered for conviction. The second is remembered as a problem. Both may have argued the same position in the same meeting, but only one of them left the room with colleagues who would still speak well of them two jobs later.
What separates them? Usually, it is whether they explained why. When you oppose a plan, name the specific concern, tie it to patient care or the operating budget, and offer the approach you would take in its place.
A colleague who heard your reasoning may still think you were wrong. But that colleague will describe you as someone who disagreed on the merits, and on a reference call that describes judgment, not someone who is “hard to work with.”
Once the decision goes the other way, do not reopen it at the next meeting. How you carry out a decision you opposed tells a future employer as much about you as the objection itself did, and the people who watched you do it will remember.
Have the Story Ready Before Anyone Asks
Set aside twenty minutes this week. List everyone from your previous employers whom a hiring executive could reach without your help, then write next to each name what you honestly believe that person would say about you.
If one of those names belongs to someone you clashed with, do not bring it up unprompted in an interview. Volunteering a conflict no one asked about plants a doubt the hiring team did not have. Prepare the story instead. When an interviewer asks about a time you disagreed with a senior colleague or why you left a previous role, that is your opening to describe the disagreement in terms of the decision and what was at stake, and explain why you took the position you did.
Told that way, the conflict shows candor and judgment. If a backdoor call later surfaces the same story, it confirms what you already said instead of revealing something new.
How you left matters too. A clean handoff and a gracious exit from a previous employer are often the last memory that organization has of you, and last memories are the ones that get repeated. Someday your current role will be a previous one, so the same care applies when you leave it.
Repair One Relationship This Month
Look at your list again and pick one person from a previous employer you have lost touch with or parted with badly. Reach out this month. If you simply lost touch, call. If you parted badly, write first, because a note lets them decide how to respond instead of putting them on the spot. Either way, you are not asking for a favor or reopening old disagreements. When a hiring executive calls, people describe you from the most recent memory they have, which is years old if you lost touch and the disagreement if you parted badly. Give them a newer one by asking how they handled something you are facing now.