Managers! Would you retract my job offer?

[WaroftheWorlds]

I have been offered a great job, in a brand new field but my experience is really transferable. I am literally so excited. They have even upped the starting salary for me.

But I have been really unlucky health wise in the last year, and had two extended periods of sickness absence due to two unrelated and one off issues that both needed surgery. Once surgery in both cases was complete, I was cured but one absence was for three weeks and one was for just over 2 weeks both for recovery. Both had sicknotes.

On top of this I had three days off with a cold and one day with a chest infection. Both highly unusual. I am not normally a sick person.

If they check my sickness prior to this, it is fine. Go back three years agd it is clear.

The last extended absence was November into December.

I plan to give notice tomorrow, but thought it would be a good idea to phone up their HR Department and tell them, so that it isn't found out via a reference when I have already given notice and am vulnerable.

My performance in my current job is good and I am positive the rest of my reference will be good, but the sickness is high.

Managers in larger, established organisations, (think civil service ) , would you retract an offer based on that sickness?

Ok but what if your current employer doesn’t do the references immediately? I’ve had it before where I’ve started a new job before the references had been received. And let’s say for some reason they did give you a bad one and the new job rescinded the offer - it’s going to make things incredibly awkward if you say to your boss, the one who’s just given you a bad reference, that actually you don’t want to resign anymore

How can you start a new job if they havent received your references ?
You wouldnt get your unconditional aka final offer until everything has been cleared.
Its highly unlikely anyone would give a bad reference.
They could be sued if its untrue and if they think you they are that bad they would want to get rid.
More likely is a "from x date to y date Fred was employed as"

Can you not give them a reference from a previous employer not your current employer. That is what I have always done.

I had this situation and I handed my notice in after taking some advice from HR. I was transferring from one part of the Civil Service to another.

It was fine 🙂

It’s happened a couple of times where I’ve started a job and someone has said ‘oh by the way we haven’t had your references back yet, can you chase them’. No recruiter has ever said I can’t start without references being submitted

Depends if the new place asks for it. We started asking for that info as we were burnt twice employing people whe ended up constantly off sick and as a smallish team it ended up killing us - everyone else had to work longer ours to cover etc client deadlines missed which lost us business.
However we never revoked an offer due to response.

Thats exceptionally poor snout
I would be wary of working somewhere where they dont carry out proper pre employment checks .

Thank you everyone, I am very anxious as this is such an opportunity and I have been with my organisation 11 years and probably a bit institutionalised.

I will check our reference policy this morning.

They do start people without their references it seems. It is interesting to see how different things are everywhere!

Read the policy. I can expressly forbid any details about my sickness being given so thinking it would be better to do that, rather than rock the boat.

I actually would do nothing about the sickness issue unless asked (which you may not be). Then you have the opportunity to explain what happened, as you have done on here.

Congrats on the new job.

That is a just a standard letter, I wouldn't worry about it. If they take up the references then they will make a decision on whether or not to make an offer to you. You do not inform your workplace about your intentions to leave until after you have signed to accept the new job offer.