When it comes to hiring, businesses large or small, and no matter what the industry they are in, there’s one step that everyone considers for when making a decision on a candidate. We’re of course talking about the professional reference being part of the recruitment and hiring process. From the early days of getting a reference letter from a former employer with a company letter and signature of a senior management member, to now where it is expected that a phone (or video) call will be made to the conduct a professional reference. But how reliable is it?
According to studies by Beardwell et al, 2004 and CIPD (2007), professional references have proven to be a highly unreliable form of assessment and most businesses use this method as a key form of assessment during their decision-making. Potential employers only have a couple hours of time spread across 2-3 meetings with a candidate to determine whether that individual will potentially be success with a company for years to come. Under these circumstances, they will have to trust the words of a stranger who claims to be truthful, unbiased, and qualified to provide useful information about a candidate.
Let’s explore why professional references can be unreliable:
Insufficient Information and Positive Bias
Most professional references are handpicked and provided by the candidates, which means that the individual will be in good relations with the candidates and say good things about them to start. Even if they’re not on the best of terms with each other, with this area increasingly being litigious, people are afraid to give references about performance and usually sticking to the basics and factual information. Furthermore, there are instances of claims against a bad reference due to misrepresentation, defamation, and an invasion of privacy. This leads to people more likely to exclude negative aspects out.
Procedurally Flawed
When conducting a professional reference check, you’re playing a game of broken telephone where there is lost in translation on information starting from the reference to the person conducting the reference, and ultimately reaching the decision makers reading the reference. It’s also relying on the viewpoint of one individual who’s providing their perspective of another person without any cross examination to look for positive and negative bias, inaccuracies, exaggerations, and misrepresentations.
False References
Candidates that have burned bridges with former employers may not be able to provide a professional reference, but to do so, they sometimes have a family member, friend, or former colleague posing as a supervisor / manager. For obvious reasons, this makes the whole purpose of doing professional references pointless when fraud is involved and all credibility about the individual should be thrown out the window if it occurs.
Now, what you can do to increase the reliability of the information that you’re getting?
Choose and Verify References Yourself
Establish who a candidate’s direct supervisor or manager is from their past employment during the interview process. Should the candidate provide anyone else as their professional reference, ask why their immediately supervisors / managers were not provided and ask to speak to them specifically.
Next, find out the reference’s current employer and professional contact information. Never call a personal number as you cannot verify the individual’s identity. You can call the company number directly and ask for the individual or ask for their corporate email addresses to confirm validity and schedule a time to talk.
Speak to as many references as you can (three or four), as the more people you talk to, the more you can see consistency and behavioural patterns about the candidate.
Describe the Job and Ask Open-ended Questions
You should begin the call by explaining the job, to give the reference an idea what position you’re considering the candidate for. This can shed some light on why certain questions are being asked and they can come up with relevant information that they can share based on your line of questioning. Remember, you’re doing some fact checking and verifying the information given by the candidate. Ask open ended questions that allows the references to elaborate and provide examples about the candidate. Also, ask questions on anything red flags that you have during the interview process to see if everything lines up to what the candidate has told you. Don’t be afraid to ask to follow up questions to get to the truth.
Plan and Be Prepared
Schedule a time to speak with the reference so they are not caught by surprised or rushed. Assure the reference that the conversation will remain confidential and only for the purpose of supporting the decision process of your current hire. Be professional and respectful of the reference’s feedback and time as they are not obligated to doing the reference. Make sure you have prepared a list of questions and ensure that you take down notes during the call so that all the important information can be used to evaluate discrepancies, red flags, and overall fit to the position.
As the reliability of professional references has diminished in recent years people continue to use it as a part of their hiring assessment because there simply aren’t many other options to verifying and validating a candidate’s past experiences and skillset. To make this still a viable tool for your organization, it comes down to understanding your team’s intent for doing professional references, doing it properly, and asking the right questions.
Contact Us today to speak with one of our Account Executives and let us help you build your team with the right talent this year!
References:
https://www.recruiter.com/recruiting/how-reliable-are-employment-references/
https://www.recruiter.com/recruiting/how-to-get-reliable-information-from-reference-checks/
https://www.hrmagazine.co.uk/content/comment/false-references-how-concerned-should-employers-be
https://hbr.org/2016/07/the-right-way-to-check-someones-references
Photo Credit: Image by drobotdean on Freepik