There are two camps when it comes to professional referencing. One is that they comprise a large part of the overall criteria for hiring an individual. While they are indeed one component, in my opinion and experience, nothing is more important than the interviews themselves, where, if conducted properly, you get a solid understanding of the person’s background, experience and expertise and insight into how he or she has conducted themselves in various relevant situations.
The other camp is that they are irrelevant. Increasingly companies will only confirm dates of employment and position in order to protect themselves. Even then, you can often find someone that you know who has worked with the individual (especially here in the financial services arena in Toronto) and get the ‘scoop’ or the ‘real goods’ on the individual.
I often conduct professional business references for my clients before they hire a candidate and take this role seriously. I ensure that I am crafting questions that are relevant to that particular role and that I have strong probing questions to really get at the heart of what that person did and how well they did it. A good professional reference is probably 30-40 minutes long and results in a detailed referencing report.
Today, for the very first time, I was asked to provide a professional reference by a well-known background referencing company doing this for a well-known job board. I was surprised because I was invited to provide the professional business reference via e-mail and to provide my responses via an on-line program. How effective is that? The questions were very generic (and not very relevant to the role the individual performed for me), didn’t ask about the role and responsibilities while she worked for me, didn’t ask about her strengths or areas of development, etc. They were so generic as to be meaningless and, if I did have something of interest to say, there was no opportunity for them to probe further.
Undoubtedly this type of background referencing is gaining favour because it’s cheap but, in this particular instance, really didn’t provide anything of any benefit. Most people will only provide the names of references who are going to say only good things….this makes it even harder to learn anything of value. At least in a detailed reference call, the interviewer can probe if the referee makes a statement that warrants further discussion.
Food for thought? If you want to ensure you are running a comprehensive recruiting initiative, have a good strategy in place – including a solid professional business referencing piece – and execute on it. It’s much more costly to replace a new employee than to invest upfront to ensure you are getting what you think you are.
Alice, great post! I am also a strong believer that an effective reference check be conducted in a call and not in an electronic format! The interviewer can probe deeper when necessary during a call, however, that opportunity does not exist in the electronic environment.
Thanks Marty. I thought you would agree. Britton Profiles does an awesome job in this regard….using great questions that really drill down. It’s a shame that this other large background check company does not…..or has this option I guess for the sake of cost.
We really need an independent reference ideally. Its such a challenge and difficult to address a universal policy as each hire is so unique. There does seem to be a bit of considered almost a perfunctory duty by many employers. The other aspect is, lets be honest the more we dig the more the likelihood that eventually we find something we don’t want to hear so… Discipline and consistency are in order.
Ah, but better to find something we don’t want to hear BEFORE we make the hire, than after. That’s my beef with some of the search firms (and I am a boutique search firm). They don’t want to do their due diligence because they want the client to make the hire. I rather the client not make the hire than make the wrong hire.
Sure Alice. I’d agree reference taking should be concluded before offer wherever practical. I will get references for my clients at their request but its not a prerequisite….I know how unreliable can be.