What information can an ex-employer give out?

• Details about your job performance while you were under employment there

• Responsibilities you had

• Your professional conduct while working for the organization

While there are no federal laws regarding what your former employer can say about you, some states do have laws in place that restrict what an employer can't and can say about a former employee.

In certain states, employers can badmouth with seeming impunity. Although this is the case, many former employers are very cautious in terms of how they speak about former employees. This is because they want to avoid any liabilities, like:

• A possible lawsuit

• Bad employer reviews on public job sites

• Gaining the reputation of being an employer that speaks ill of its former employees

It is also often frowned upon to speak badly of former employees, unless the employee was a particularly poor worker. Even then, many might see this more as some sort of bias, rather than a legitimate assessment of the former employee.