[JamesBarney]

Most companies will answer two questions "When did Joe work here, and is Joe eligible for rehire?" This is why it's important for him to figure out if he was terminated-with-cause or not. If this was the case then he is not eligible for rehire and when a company does a background check Joe will run into this issue.

[beachy]

Do you have any evidence about that? We are in the HR software field and in my experience being"eligible for rehire" is not a binary fact, and even if it was it might not be at the fingertips of the person giving the reference.

[JamesBarney]

This was my understanding talking to a couple of friends who were in H.R. They said their company's policy was to only let them answer these two questions. And they implied that this was similar for several other companies they worked for.

So what I'm drawing this conclusion from is definitely anecdotal.