Question: Can my current employer contact a prospective employer to see if I attended an interview with their company?

 L.R.
         Newnan, Georgia

Answer: L.R., your question has three answers:

1. An employer is free to have communications with any other person or company about any topic they wish, just as you are free to contact any person who is considering coming to work for your employer. It is a free country.

2. However, if your current employer said anything (a) false about you, or (b) that interfered without a “good reason” with your possibly working for that perspective employer, you have every right to either sue them for damages they may have caused you. 

3. However, if your current employer had a “good reason” for contacting the prospective employer – for example, if you had told them you were seeing a doctor that day, and your employer heard you had lied about that, and instead was attending an interview – and they simply asked your prospective employer if you met with them on a certain day, then (a) you cannot sue them for saying anything false because they did not say anything false, and (b) you cannot sue them for interfering because they had a “good reason” for the communication.

Of course, unless you have an employment contract, you are always free to resign if you do not agree with what they did, and they are always free to ask you to leave. That is certain.

Hope this helps. And thanks for writing in. 

  Best, Al Sklover   

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© 2010 Alan L. Sklover, All Rights Reserved.