I had 2 rounds of interviews with this marketing agency for a designer role. Pretty good experience talking to the folks there. Their job offer was around 50K, below what I already had in terms of salary and vacation days. Factoring in the time & monetary cost of driving to downtown and parking, it would result in a reduction in income, so I turned down the offer. What surprised me was the co-founder's lengthy reply to my email declining the job. She was bitter, self-righteous and unprofessional. She tried to cast doubt in my confidence by saying that I had "zero agency experience, unoriginal work, no design team experience, average reference with notable issues." When I asked her to disclose reference check result per BC labor law, she claimed the reference feedback was "confidential". She went on to say that she "may also have looked outside the references you gave me (I often do) to ensure I got real feedback and not "friend" feedback. The best thing you can do is ensure you have an exit interview where you receive feedback from your employer when you leave and ask what you could have done better." - I never gave her consent to reach out to anyone other than those I provided for background checks, nor did I receive any notice from her. She was completely oblivious about the BC legislations on reference checks and she was apparently proud of what she had done. I had to hire a reference check service to vet all my previous employers - everything came back great. My take was that she was mad over the declined job offer. She didn't appear to tolerate my opinions and choices. She needs to work on her professionalism, and definitely take some HR trainings and understand the law better. I was so glad that I turned down the job and avoided this egotistical person.