Should I warn my friend?

You can tell them to take the feedback seriously; don't leak internal deliberations.

Does this hurt my credibility?

Only if you pretend it wasn't your referral.

What if I had doubts and referred anyway?

Say so, once. It's the honest version and it recalibrates your future referrals.

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Tier 3: Dumpster Fire

What do you do when someone you referred or recommended isn't working out?

The short answer

Go to the hiring manager and acknowledge that you vouched for them, then offer specific help rather than distance — coaching, context, or an honest read on what you may have missed. Do not disown the referral, and do not defend performance you can't see. Referrals are a reputation loan; how you handle a bad one determines whether you can make another.

What's actually at stake

01Distancing yourself is the move everyone notices and nobody respects.
02You often have context the manager doesn't, and it can genuinely help.
03Overcorrecting into criticism of the person makes you look disloyal to both sides.

Do

· Acknowledge the referral explicitly.
· Offer specific, bounded help.
· Be honest about what you did and didn't know.

Don't

· Do not say 'I barely knew them'.
· Do not relay gossip about their performance.
· Do not stop referring people entirely — just calibrate.

A draft you can send now

I referred [Name], so this is partly mine to help with. I worked with them on [context], which may or may not be relevant to what you're seeing. Happy to give them candid feedback directly if that's useful to you.

Tailor this to my exact disaster →

Questions people actually ask

Should I warn my friend?: You can tell them to take the feedback seriously; don't leak internal deliberations.
Does this hurt my credibility?: Only if you pretend it wasn't your referral.
What if I had doubts and referred anyway?: Say so, once. It's the honest version and it recalibrates your future referrals.

Take it further

Ask Cris about this →

Talk it through with the crisis bot using your actual details.

Grade what you already sent →

Incident Autopsy scores the damage and rewrites it.

Rehearse the conversation →

Spar with a skeptical manager, exec, or client before the real one.

Tier 3: Dumpster Fire explained →

A meeting will be scheduled about this. Possibly a recurring one.

Related incidents

All CYABot tools →