Can I ask why an employee was fired?

I have seen many employers try to skirt the issue of unemployment by claiming the person was not working out, when in fact they were overloaded with people in this economy, and wanted to shed a body. It maybe he was not a strong performer, or it may be for political reasons he was the safest person to let go. A lot of Managers are not good managers and they require employees to manage up to be successful, perhaps his skill set was not within the manageable skills of the supervisor, thus the termination was a result of the inability of the supervisor, not the employee?
I would ask the candidate first and follow up with the reference. You can do a background check to see if he has any warrants or convictions. My experience is if a person has work related issues, they will have issues in life that will be reflected in the background check.
I would also say that you are hiring a person for what they can do for you, if you believe they have the right stuff, go ahead and hire. They may be your next superstar.

The prospective candidate has admitted to being fired and one would assume that you have inquired of him/her the reason. You have every right and in fact should inquire of the past employer as to the validity of the reason the candidate provided. The fact that the candidate is referring you to a "personal reference" for insight on the matter is a bit troubling. What is their connection to the matter and how is it they have knwledge of the facts??

Yes you can inquire with the previous employer about the reason for termination. However, if they have their act together, they will not answer unless you have the prospective employee sign a wavier allowing the release of information.

The legal answer is YES. You can ask the candidate or any reference for the reason s/he is no longer with that company regardless of whether s/he quit, was terminated, was laid off, etc. It's a good idea to ask the candidate why s/he is no longer with that company, then match up his/her answer to the answer the references give.

Just a quick word about what you can/can't ask in a reference check--you can generally ask anything that would be a legal interview question. So, while you can certainly ask a reference why your candidate is no longer with that company, you can't ask about medical information, for example.

Legally, you can ask the employee and the employer the reason why the employee was fired. Everyone falls on hard luck and hardtimes. Well, perhaps not everyone. You should take each on a case by case basis. I recently found out that a former coworker was fired because a customer complained to her supervisor about her. But in reality, the supervisor and coworker had an unsquashable beef for several months. The coworker was attractive and to some of us on the inside, it appeared that the supervisor was jealous. Now, if you called this supervisor and she said that the person was fired because of the customer's complaint, it is safe to say that she was really fired for other reasons. Particularly since most people in customer service manage to tick a customer off at one time or other.

Hi Rachel,

Another thought, in my experience, when a candidate informs me their job ended due to termination, what is stated afterwards (or not stated) is the most important. The comments that followed usually gave light to the reason(s) for the termination. If no explanation is given, I do ask the candidate.

Legally you can ask for reasons why an individual was terminated. It is what you do with the learned information that could potentially cause legal trouble. I usually get a gut feeling about a candidate in the first 3 – 5 minutes of an interview. In most cases, the body language, how a candidate speaks (tone and word choice), how they are dressed/groomed will all help me to determine if I want to ask the reasons for their termination.

Out of all fairness to all prospecting individuals, some do not want to speak about their termination for good reason. The termination could have been unjust on any level. However, if the candidate has excellent skills and worth pursuing, I will call more references to ensure a right choice is made for both company and candidate.