A structured interview can only reveal information about a candidate’s work ethic and personality to a certain extent.  During the interview process, many interviewers believe their interviewer skills and techniques will be enough to find out how well they will fit in.  This overconfidence does not allow companies to learn enough about candidates to find out how successful they will be as a worker and member of the workplace.  This is why reference checks should be utilized by interviewers.


When you conduct a reference check, what should you ask?  With the exception of the Employment Short Version reference form, the other three reference check forms listed above contain at least 20 specific questions that are designed to force a reference to really think and not simply respond with the standard listing of positive and negative strengths.  The Employment Short Version form contains only 5 basic questions (including the Negligent Hiring Question) and is used with employers who only provide dates of employment and positions held.

 

The main reason for failing to get a reference is failure to get a candidate’s supervisor to talk openly.  As such, I use a strategy for securing references from former supervisors that requires the senior-level candidate to make the phone call to the former supervisor and coordinate the date and time of the reference call.  I have found that based on the strength of the relationship between the candidate and the former supervisor, the supervisor will often deviate from his/her company’s policy when the reference is good.  If the supervisor is not willing to deviate from the “name, rank, & serial number” philosophy, then you might have success in simply getting the person to verify specific factual information such as goals or accomplishments that the candidate claimed in the interview.  If worse comes to worse and you can’t get any information from the supervisor, then you can at least verify employment and ask the critical Negligent Hiring Question.

 

Also, if you require the senior-level candidate to coordinate the reference calls with former employers, you might get a better handle on the type of relationship the person had with a former supervisor as well as raise any red flags if the candidate refuses or hesitates.  As such, when I conduct the initial 30-minute phone interview with a candidate, I ask the applicant if arranging reference calls would be a problem with any former supervisor.  If the candidate gives me the “party line” that a particular company filters all references through the HR Department, I tell the applicant that I must still speak to a former supervisor even if he/she redirects me to HR in the phone call, but the candidate must set up the call to the supervisor.  Whether or not you make good on this “threat” of having the candidate set up the reference call is immaterial.  Just the presence of this requirement may be enough to deter a candidate with a questionable past.

 

When you finally get a former supervisor who is willing to talk, I have found that the biggest problem in getting good responses is the failure to ask good questions.  Unfortunately, most people who call a reference ask some simple questions about strengths and weaknesses and think that they have done their job.  When I check a reference, I want to know specifics about the candidate to the point that the reference call can turn into a mini-employment interview where I validate the specific claims and accomplishments that the candidate made in the interview.

 

If a candidate hands you a list of references, then you need to document the answers to 4 key questions next to the name of each reference:

  1. What type of reference is each person?
    1. Business (specify: supervisor, peer or subordinate),
    2. Personal (specify: relative, friend, acquaintance, etc.), or
    3. Both business and personal?
  2. How long did the candidate know each person? (the actual dates)
  3. How long did the candidate actually work (e.g., employment, community projects, etc.) with each person? (the actual dates)
  4. How would the candidate classify the closeness of the working relationship? (Worked on actual projects together, regular contact as part of their jobs, casual contact as part of their jobs, socialize regularly, friendly contact among coworkers or friends, etc.)

 

For any letters of reference that the candidate gives to you, you must ask the above 4 questions and call the reference to ask the questions from the appropriate reference check form.

 

Besides an Employment reference form, I have included reference forms for Personal and for Peer/Subordinate references.  I am aware of the fact that many people are suspicious of references from peers and friends.  However, if you remember the Peer Rating validity (R = .49) statistic from Chapter 4, it ranked relatively high despite the opinions that people might have about how peer and personal references can be manipulated. 

 

Personally, I would not hesitate to include peers or personal sources in a reference process especially if I was having difficulty getting specific information from former employers.  It has been my experience, that when I ask the 20+ specific questions that are listed on the Personal and Peer/Subordinate reference check forms, I am frequently shocked by the honesty of some of the responses – some negatives that I thought I would never hear just happen to pop out.  From my perspective, I am convinced that if you ask the right questions, you will get quality responses.  It all comes down to knowing what to ask.

The reference check is a great asset to add to a plethora of interviewer skills or interviewer techniques.   Without properly identifying how significantly a company will be influenced by the arrival of the candidate, interviewers are not fulfilling their duties during the hiring process.