REFERENCE CHECKING
Checking References on prospective employees is a necessary step in your hiring process. Obtaining references has become more difficult due to the rights of your candidates. Many corporations are more reluctant to provide any extensive insight into the candidate in which you are inquiring. Therefore, you need to become creative in ways to still obtain what you need in order to validate the information presented to you by prospective employees.
The first part of reference checking is to qualify the reference.
First determine the relationship to the candidate. Get the titles of both your candidate as well as the reference. I can’t tell you how many times I have gone to check a reference and they give you the title they feel is what you want! You must verify the title of every reference. I have even been given a receptionist who was listed by my candidate as a V.P. of HR! Of course I was able to recognize her lack of knowledge and my candidate told me the truth once I approached her. Also find out the amount of time they were working together. Next, obtain all pertinent information regarding the company for which this reference was/is employed. Make sure to determine the scope of responsibility. Ask them the size of the company and the types of people and positions they had/have on staff. Inquire about the work environment by asking about the pace, performance standards, overall quality of staff and the overall quality of the internal procedures, processes and systems. Finally, you should ask how they measured performance.
Qualifying your reference is a great way to gain valuable insight into your candidate without asking direct questions. If you are able to encourage your references to talk about themselves, they are likely to also provide information about your candidate.
Another way to gather information is to ask leading questions. This way you make it less threatening by giving them words to simply agree or disagree with you when answering.
It is very important to identify and avoid the candidate that just can’t give you a professional reference from a past direct Manager/Supervisor, etc! If you are checking references and your candidate provides you with HR Departments that will only verify dates of employment it is a red flag! Typically if someone has been with a company for a while, “someone” should be willing to say something positive about that person! Often Managers will say a few things “off the record.” If the person has been out of touch with their references, again, professional references should be in contact at all times – especially during a job search – another red flag!
When conducting reference checks, take the given information and make sure you validate what your candidate has told you. Obtain the needed insight by getting the right person on the phone to talk with you! DO NOT EVER skip this step when you are hiring for your opportunities. If you do, the results can be disastrous!
Nancy J. Phillips, CPC
