If there's no severance, then I'd expect a solid-gold reference, yes. With appropriate severance, the neutral name-and-dates is fine.
A bad reference is an existential battle. You do everything you can to fight that. However, pushing neutral to good is generally a waste of time. Dust yourself off, get clean, and move on.
I am no kind of authority, so please don't take this comment any further than the actual words in the comment box. In particular, I have never worked with you, or anyone who has worked with you; I don't even know what you do (I'm sure it's something interesting and challenging). You're an abstraction to me. I cannot possibly have any opinion about the advisability of employing you and am only sharing my opinion about the ideas you are expressing.
What I have to say about your perspective on references is that I will never, under any circumstances, work with, for, or over someone who believes what I think you're saying you believe about references. "Bad reference => war", to me, is essentially an endorsement of professional dishonesty.
Negotiating over the quality of your reference is to me a bit squicky, but it's on the right side of the line, just a couple steps past coaching your references (which is also white-lie dishonest]). Using aggressive negotiation tactics to ensure good references from people who don't believe your work merits a good reference is on the wrong side of the line. You think it's a concession you're extracting from your former employer, but it is really a concession you are surreptitiously taking from your future employer.
"Bad reference => war", to me, is essentially an endorsement of professional dishonesty.
This whole subthread is about 3-sigma outlier cases that (may) require dishonesty.
I am not ashamed to say that, in a 3-sigma bad situation, I would rather lie (especially, being an immensely capable person who would be a good hire, which means the lied-to party would benefit) than starve.
Honestly is a luxury of the 99% of us (including you and me) who aren't "cosmetically challenged" in some severe, career-damaging way.
Why have interviews at all? You're an immensely capable person who clearly knows what's best for your prospective employer. Just hire yourself for them!
michaelochurch brings up a great point that having even the most minor slip in your records will too often result in a disproportionately, unreasonably unfair reception in the job market:
I don't know the details and I'm not a felon, but I think
it is pretty fucked up how any felony leads to long-term
economic disenfranchisement, so I sincerely hope this
advice helps.
There is something wrong in the system that things are that way, and really I don't see anything abjectly wrong in one doing what he suggested, when you're in a position where the odds are overwhelmingly stacked against you and you've still got to somehow provide for your family.
> He is incorrect about the job market for former felons in our field
I recall that you are in the security field. Naturally some of the best workers in the field very well might be individuals who got into trouble in their teenage years for hacking offenses -- I think you're operating on certain assumptions that are valid indeed only for that niche security field. I can tell you from my experiences in the corporate IT world that the situation here is the opposite to the one you speak of, employers come down hard on folks with the slightest slip in their records, and will absolutely use that bit of information to discriminate against them in hiring decisions.
I agree with michaelochurch when he points out that getting a job for a couple years, building up savings, and then getting fired... is probably better than not getting any jobs and being long-term unemployed in most scenarios.
That's an easy statement to agree with because it is obviously true. I agree with it too! Who wouldn't agree with it? The problem is, that advice came packaged with another piece of advice which was much worse.
I would suggest that while there might be employers who'd take a risk with someone who had a dishonesty offence from their youth, that same pool would very quickly dry up when in became apparent such a person kept behaving dishonestly, in employment situations, no less, years later.
A bad reference is an existential battle. You do everything you can to fight that. However, pushing neutral to good is generally a waste of time. Dust yourself off, get clean, and move on.