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By request: checking references

by Miki Saxon

I received a number of calls after my selective hearing post Friday. (I think they were surprised to reach me on the weekend:) They wondered why I think that

  • managers should do their own reference checking;
  • what kind of information should they be after;
  • should they check even if the referring party (search firms, HR) said they had checked;
  • who were the best references; to check; and
  • how to get info from them.

There were enough calls that I thought it was worth a post and that I’d include a couple of war stories with the names changed to protect me.

The best use of reference checking is to confirm the team’s interviewing opinions and impressions as well as to protect the company from potential liability. References are not a substitute for skilled interviewing.

Smart managers check most references themselves. This is especially true in fields where there is specialized knowledge such as engineering, software, IT, biotechnical, finance, marketing, technical and other sales, etc. It’s practically impossible for HR or a headhunter to perform a technical reference check requiring technical knowledge of the company’s needs. Even when the recruiter is also technical in that field, there is no way that their knowledge is the equal of the manager, plus, every human has preferences and you don’t want to hire someone else’s!

You may think that when you are absolutely positive about the person’s technical skills, and are checking only to confirm character and general work habits, that a nontechnical outsider can stand in for you, however, there is no way that an outsider is able to evaluate the candidate’s fit from a cultural and chemistry perspective.

Strangely, the lower the position, the more carefully the references are checked. Frequently, as positions move up the ladder, the reference checks move to a higher plane also, and basic skills and competency aren’t even questioned. This often gets much worse on the executive level, after all, if the person has been a VP, CFO or CEO before then they must know what they are doing, right?

Likewise, just because a candidate comes from a headhunter, or even a retained search firm, it’s not wise to assume the references have been checked as thoroughly as needed.

Carol was a Board member, and on the selection committee, of Immersion, Inc. The company had retained a well-known search firm to find a new CEO. Christine, the candidate they sent, seemed perfect—she had excellent credentials and enormous charm, but Carol was unsure. Although she knew nothing definite, she just wasn’t comfortable with some of Christine’s answers, so she decided do some checking herself. It didn’t take long and what she learned was appalling.

 

Christine claimed to have been responsible for the sale of one of her previous employers. It had been sold, all right—by the Court’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings. Worse yet, there were two class-action lawsuits against two other ex-employers charging stock manipulation—one of which charged Christine personally with breach of fiduciary responsibility!

 

All of this was public knowledge, but Carol got an additional earful from the people she talked to. Christine had a reputation of being arrogant, unwilling to listen to anybody else, a micromanager, manipulator, and a de-motivator.

Carol shared her information with the rest of the Selection Committee and they asked for an explanation from the search firm. After sorting through the umms, ahhs, and various excuses, it became apparent that the firm had only talked to Christine’s carefully chosen references and and run a quick Net search (the legal problems predated the Net), but had not checked her out beyond that.

How do you get “real” references in today’s reference-shy world? First, a manager can usually get more information than can an “outsider”—especially when talking to another manager, a rapport of trust can be developed fairly quickly. No matter the company policy, on a person-to-person basis people will talk.

Ask your candidate for three each of the following references, if possible:

  • Supervisors
  • Peers
  • Subordinates (if applicable)

Call at least two of each, including at least one “set,” i.e., supervisor and peer from the same company, if possible; this is valuable because it gives you the opportunity to compare specific knowledge and comments and get a more well-rounded picture of the person.

In many cases, you will be given people who have also changed employment. That’s a positive because they are much more likely to open up with you. References should be current, within the last several years of employment. If you are not given a current supervisor or there are no references of any type from a particular company, ask why.

Some of the best references you get are from the candidate’s peers and subordinates. First, they are frequently more willing to talk. More importantly, they are in a position to know the person’s actual work more intimately than many managers. Even if the first person you talk to is negative, call all the references. This is important because the other references will round out your view of the candidate and often offset the negative one.

Ian, VP of engineering, wanted to hire an engineer whose old boss called him a trouble-maker and terminated him. That situation didn’t agree with the impressions formed by the interviewing team so Ian started checking peer references. They confirmed the comment and the termination but added the reason. The engineer had refused to sign off on a flawed design that his boss wanted to send on to manufacturing in order to meet a deadline.

 

Ian hired him because he saw that attitude as a positive, not a negative.

Reference checks should be approached in the same way as phone interviews By asking well-phrased, open-ended questions and turning the call into a conversation, you can learn a tremendous amount. It’s easiest if you have a written form to follow (included at end) and think through any specific information you’re after. This allows you to work it into the conversation in a non threatening way that is more likely to yield results—a stream-of-consciousness as opposed to Q&A. As with interviewing, what is not said is as important as what is said, so listen carefully to the pauses, hesitations and silences.

All information you get in the reference check is confidential—even when it’s positive don’t discuss it with your candidate. If you don’t hire after checking references you must have a plausible reason, one that won’t backfire sometime in the future, but under no circumstances pass on negative information or even indicate that that’s why you aren’t making an offer.

It’s difficult to back-pedal once you start checking references. That’s another reason to check all the references, since, if you don’t hire, it’s nearly impossible to pinpoint the sources of the negative reference. Sure, when you turn down a candidate after checking, the candidate may assume that something was negative, but assumptions don’t mean anything. The problem comes only if you let the candidate stampede you into sharing reference information.

You already know it’s unlikely that you’ll be given the names of people who will say negative things, so it’s up to you, through skillful, relaxed interviewing, to elicit the information you need.

As with any other management function, all it takes is the right mindset and a bit of practice to get the results you want.

Finally, here’s the reference checking form mentioned earlier.

Reference Check

Date: _________________________Date of Interview:____________________________

Candidate: ________________________________________________________________

Position: __________________________________________________________________

General, open-ended questions to get the conversation going:

Specific technical things to check on:

Specific human things to check on:

Person’s greatest strength and why:

** Area for improvement (you may need to reassure the reference—everybody needs to
improve something) and why:

Would you like to work with this person again in the future?

Additional comments:

** One of the best approaches to this area is as follows: If you were advising this person, what would be the single most significant advice you could give him on what behavior to modify (or ability to enhance) to improve himself?

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