[gambiting]

>>Asking the person, "Would you rehire this person?" or "Would you like to work with this person?" has a 95% answer rate and says everything

I don't know of any company in the UK that would ever answer such a question, maybe a small shop that hasn't learnt better yet. Companies will provide references that always just say "this person has worked here for X years", no one would ever say anything either positive or negative.

[ivalm]

If you ask HR then that’s the answer, if you ask employees they will give you a pretty useful reference (having done reference calls quite a bit, basically from folks at every major US tech company).

[ghaff]

Yeah. You don't formally ask for recommendations but people know people and that's how it works. (Which is why a lot of job hunting is about networks whether you like it or not.)

[amanaplanacanal]

Before I retired (in the US), that was the policy where I worked.