Employee Reference checks misguiding? .. for evolving careers

Employers often use reference checks when hiring for senior level roles. I strongly believe in reference checks, but they don't always match actual performance after joining.

Reference Check Fallacies experienced:

• Strong ref checks, but weaker performance. Complacent folks degrade in performance vs their experience levels as time passes. While, some people excel at one level but struggle at a higher level over time (Peter's principle).

• Weak ref checks, but stronger performance. Driven folks keep learning from mistakes and improving them. If someone had difficulties with something before, they can make it a strength by working on it. But employers may believe that the past reference feedback indicates the employee's current performance. So, the actual performance can differ for a self improving person.

Reasons for misleading Reference Checks:

• Static ref check can fly in the face of "Continuous Improvement and Fail Fast" culture. The feedback is from a time in past, when the provider and candidate worked together. Companies encourage taking risk and failing fast as a culture. Static reference-checks can assume that people don't change over time. But that's incorrect as people do change and evolve over time.

• Feedback provider can be biased against the candidate. In the workplace, people can dislike/disagree with each other due to different office dynamics/politics, regardless of each other's performance. E.g. The person giving feedback was also a low performer. Because of this, he has issues with the candidate.

• Very few feed-backs can lead to skewed results. To gain reliable insights in statistics, diverse and statistically significant data points are necessary. In our case, we need to cover different stages of a career, especially the last 5-8 years. This should include supervisors, peers, and reporters, especially for hiring senior roles.
• Namesake Reference checks just to check the mark, after decision has been made. People do it because they have to, so they do a quick cursory background check and ignore any warnings.

Best practices to take advantage ref checks

Mandate Reference check in Process:

• Make ref checks mandatory part of recruitment process. Should be same stature as interview rounds. Debrief only after ref checks are also done.

Preparation for taking reference check:

• Hiring managers need to approve the list of reviewers. Make sure it has a good balance of managers, peers, and reporters from the past 5-10 years. To avoid being influenced by the reasons listed in the "reasons for misleading ref checks" section, make sure to have at least 3-5 people for sufficient data points.
• Do ref checks from suitable person e.g. manager or person who closely worked.

Reference Check taking Guidance:

• Take things in perspective. Consider the candidate's experience and role when they overlapped. E.g. If the reviewer and candidate worked together when the candidate was a junior employee, while you are hiring for a senior executive position. The feedback can be misleading in this case.
• Preferably ref checks should be in old to new sequence of experience. So that you can track his strengths and weaknesses over time and see how they changed over time.
• Appreciate if a red flag comes up in a review and the next reviews speak positively or do not speak about the shortcoming at all. This means the candidate has worked upon it and improved. Rather than counting it as a red flag.

Reference checks is strong tool. Keep using it to your advantage!

Disclaimer: Opinions expressed are solely my own and do not express the views or opinions of my employer.