In our last article, we looked at backdoor references, the calls a hiring executive makes to people you never listed. This time we look at the backdoor call you can see coming, to someone any thorough hiring executive will want to reach and who you already know may not speak well of you. The answer is to raise it first and make sure theirs is not the only voice a hiring executive hears.
You Can’t Silence a Bad Reference. You Can Outnumber It.
When you became CFO, your new CEO had previously held that job for eight years before his promotion and told you finance was yours to run. Within a quarter, the CEO was rebuilding your budget models and taking questions directly to your controller.
You delivered anyway. Days in accounts receivable came down, and the audit came back clean for the first time in three years. Two years later you left on your own terms for the role you hold now, and the CEO did not take the news of your departure well. You have plenty of people lined up and ready to speak positively regarding your work as CFO, along with one you know will not (your previous boss).
You cannot change what your former CEO will say. You can decide what a hiring executive has already heard by the time that call happens.
A Missing Name Invites the Question
Leaving your former CEO off your reference list will not stop that call. Your current employer is off limits for references, which makes your former CEO the most recent supervisor a hiring executive can reach, and one a thorough hiring executive or Talent Acquisition Manager will want to hear from whether you list him or not. The gap will be noticed. If his account is the first they hear, it becomes the story.
Tell Them Before They Call
So the conversation has to come from you, when the hiring executive asks for references. Keep it short, take your share of it, and leave the word “micromanager” out of it entirely:
“My former CEO was CFO for eight years before I took the role, and we had different approaches to the role. The lines of authority were blurry, and we never fully agreed on which decisions were mine to make. I demonstrated impact in the areas the organization was seeking; however, the CEO and I never really clicked or aligned. So, to be honest, I am not sure what type of reference he will provide. However, the people I’ve listed worked with both of us during those two years, and they can speak to my impact and what it was like working with me.”
Most hiring executives have watched a promoted leader struggle to let go of the job they used to hold, and hearing it from you, plainly and without blame, reads as candor. Some will still call him. Let them, since trying to block the call looks like hiding something. If the clash ended with you being let go, say that too, in the same plain terms.
Line Up the People Who Saw the Same Years
Bringing it up first buys you the benefit of the doubt. Your references settle the question, because one negative account next to three strong ones from the same hospital reads to a hiring executive as a personality clash. Alone, it reads as the truth.
Choose people who watched you and your former CEO during those years:
- A board member who oversaw you both. The chair of the finance committee can speak to your results at the level a hiring executive cares about most.
- A peer who reported to the same CEO. A fellow executive from that team understands the dynamic without you having to explain it.
- A physician leader. Medical staff leaders make credible references because they have no reason to flatter administration.
- Someone who reported to you. A controller or revenue cycle director can speak to how you led while your decisions were being second-guessed.
Call each one first. Ask whether they are comfortable speaking to the role and whether, based on what they saw, think you would be set up to succeed in the new role. If they are asked what it was like working for your former CEO, tell them to say what they saw, and leave it there.
Do This Before the Next Final Round
Start this month. Write out what you would say about your former CEO, then call the people you would want a hiring executive to hear from, before any search is underway.
If you still work for a boss like this, wait until your resignation is announced, since asking colleagues to vouch for you any sooner would expose your search.
Hoping that call never happens is not a plan. Making sure it is not the only call is a good strategy.