1. What are your general thoughts on him/her?

2. What three words would you use to describe him/her?

3. I have some questions regarding his/her ability to (Identified Aversions).

4. Explain the position we’re hiring for. Do you think that would be a good fit? How so?

5. Tell me about their performance when they receive work assignments, takeaways, or projects. Did they turn in completed work within established timelines? Did they require reminders or multiple revisions to the work turned in?

6.Did he/she have any signed agreements with your company that may limit his/her activities, e.g. non-compete, non-tamper, confidentiality or intellectual property agreements?

7. Would you rehire him/her?

8. Is there anything else you know about him/her that might be helpful in making our decision?

References can help you detect dishonest applicants, survey indicates

Twenty-nine percent of hiring managers who check applicants’ references say they’ve uncovered faked references in the process, a CareerBuilder survey finds. More than two-thirds of employers say they’ve changed their mind about an applicant after speaking to a reference, the survey found.

http://msn.careerbuilder.com/Article/MSN-3213-Job-Search-Do-references-matter-in-a-job-search/

One anecdote for you: Notre Dame is #1 in the country in football now, but it took them YEARS to recover from their lack of reference checking.

http://www.yourememberthat.com/media/12862/George_O_Leary_Resume_Scandal/#.ULdf24ZMek8

Dave Arnold, Ph.D., J.D.

I have a very, very strong issue with the fact of calling references the candidate did not provide though.
Here’s why:

1. First and foremost, it might simply be illegal in some countries, ethically disputable or contradictory with the guarantees provided to the candidate.

2. Methodologically: we human beings naturally tend to give more weight to negative feedback than to positive one. Therefore instead of getting a balanced, global picture of a candidate’s track record, you might as well end up your quest for absolute objectivity with the exact opposite (even if most negative feedbacks are hardly as bad as the example provided above).
I tend to think that Point 4 of the article only underlines this risk.

3. There is no perfect, flawless candidate, just like there is no perfect company. Hiring remains a human process where once a reasonable amount of guarantees have been provided and test passed, sane subjectivity and trust should -and will anyway- apply.

4. Risk: are you ready to freak out a great candidate who may not appreciate such a move?

For executive candidates, we sometimes move the check to occur post offer to be sensitive to the nature of their positions. It’s up to you as an organization what practices you want to put in place.

Keith

–dramatic reduction in recruiter time to collect and review references’ feedback
–completion rate of about 2 days, on average
–ability to capture more than the standard 2-3 references. You can control the minimum number the candidate needs to provide. We typically obtain 5 or 6 references’ feedback per candidate
–you can customize the questions posed to the reference provider to get at exactly the information you want to know about the candidate
–all feedback is summarized and anonymized, so references feel free to provide constructive, candid information about the candidates’ strengths, accomplishments and opportunities for improvement
–the tool has mechanisms in place to identify and notify us of potentially fraudulent reference checks (great way to screen out those lacking integrity and honesty before they’re in the door!)
–because the time element is reduced, we moved up the reference check in the selection process to occur prior to interviews, allowing recruiters to have more insightful information to share with hiring managers about the candidates they’re going to be meeting–it increases their ability to be true talent advisors to their hiring managers. The recruiters share areas to probe during the interview. By moving it up before the finalist decision is made, it also allows for healthy skepticism to remain in this step, as Jim mentions in the article.

As the world continues to move to relying on social feedback about all sorts of products (think customer feedback ratings on Amazon, TripAdvisor, Yelp, etc.), reference providers are comfortable with providing similarly frank information about potential candidates for your jobs.

I’d highly recommend looking at an automated solution like Checkster to maximize the value of the reference check process. It will more than pay for itself in the rich, robust information you can obtain about your potential talent and increase your overall quality of hires.

@Erin: I agree with your point. The example I illustrated didn’t include a conversation with the candidate first because my co-worker had a personal relationship with the former boss. It was more of a friend-to-friend call. We honestly expected the ex-boss to lavish the candidate with praise and were caught off-guard with the damning information he provided to us.

@Susan: I agree with your behavior-based approach. We had a candidate who left what seemed like a good job after just one year and he said it was “a mutual understanding” but he wasn’t at liberty to say much else. All the other data we had said he was a good fit for our job, but this situation was still hanging out there and his former boss wouldn’t call us back despite my repeated attempts. Very suspicious. So I put in a call to an long-time employee to ask what the story was — and to see if it jived with the candidate’s story. The rep was positive about the candidate but very vague about why he left. The rep later called me from home to say, “I couldn’t tell you at work, but they forced him out and wouldn’t give him a reason, but the real reason they let him go was so the owner could give his son a job! [Name of candidate] was great to work with but he had the wrong bloodlines.” That data helped us understand the candidate was being up front with us. He’s been an excellent employee of ours for nearly a half decade … and our owner has committed his kids will work for other businesses, not ours.

Another way of getting more accurate references is to tell the candidate which of their previous supervisors you’d like to be connected with. That way, if you get any hesitation, there’s your red flag! And, if not – call them up and look for intonation: If that previous employer would not emphatically rehire that candidate, keep pressing…

Susan

Cheers,
Keith