alt Hacker News> Please note that we will also rely significantly on both solicited references (where you introduce us) as well as unsolicited or "back-end" references (where we do our own). For the latter, please rest assured that we will never contact a current employer without first getting your permission.
References already give me goosebumps. Having them reach out to people who haven't given you permission to be a reference sounds like a recipe for disaster.
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If they do sensitive work for the government, it'd make sense that they'd do those back-end references. Also if they are in high end finance where you want to weed out people who have demonstrated moral flexibility was well as total lack of it for certain things.
i hate references.
all a good reference means to a potential employer is "you are on good terms with somebody from a previous job".
and as a job seeker, it's awkward reaching out to people you may not have talked to in a couple years to announce that you're job hunting.
Every job does that, whether they tell you or not.