Interviewing Refresher Program - BONUS Tip: Reference Checking

The hardest element of interviewing is getting to the TRUTH.

In our last article, we talked about one way to get at the truth through asking for examples and probing the examples. We call those two steps the 5-Core Question Interview, and the Magnifying Glass Approach to Interviewing. I used the metaphor of strapping a candidate into the lie detection equipment as a comparable approach.

I made this comment in my last article on getting to the truth in interviewing: Why do candidates feel so comfortable making up their job titles, responsibilities, accomplishments, and achievements. Why do they feel comfortable personally claiming the achievements of their bosses, peers, and subordinates? BECAUSE they know you will never dig deep enough in the interview to validate, verify, and vet the truth - and you’ll never triangulate their examples with references who can attest to the truth or lies.

A second tactic to get to the truth is to validate the information you obtained in the interview against references. Much like a lawyer conducting a deposition and faced with multiple pieces of data – how do you determine the truth. A great tactic is to triangulate the candidate answers among various references in a 360-degree approach – bosses, peers, subordinates, and those outside the company such as vendors, suppliers, clients, customers, and sub-contractors.

However, there are a couple of significant problems in obtaining good reference information. First, is the problem of getting only the references the candidate will provide. You only get the fan club. The second problem is the legal issue that many companies have instituted policies preventing staff from giving reference information, instead referring you to HR where you are lucky to get name, rank, and original hire date.

Problem of getting the fan club: From this point forward,  you are never going to accept references from the candidate. You will tell the candidate what references you want. You’ll indicate that you want to talk with their immediate supervisor/boss from their previous job, the client from the role before, and a peer from the position before that job. You’ll specifically identify the individuals you would like to speak with for references rather than giving the candidate the option to decide who gets included from their fan club.

Legal issue of companies not willing to provide substantive information: In over 30 years of executive search, I have yet to meet a CEO, senior executive or manager who will not violate their own company policy on NOT giving references (even if they wrote the policy) for an outstanding, top-notch, great performer – they will never violate the policy for an average, mediocre, deadbeat of an employee. Just by the fact you can get references to open up and reveal great details to you about the candidate’s work performance means you are 50 percent of way toward validating, verifying, and vetting what the candidate told you in the interview. From this point forward, when you hear the statement: I’m sorry all we can give you is name, title, and dates of employment – that’s code talk for put your running shoes on and take off in the opposite direction. It means we want to hide behind a wall of legal liability because we can’t say great things about this person. You’ll never get to the issues of attendance violations, lack of effort, weak performance, harassment, lawsuits, or the candidate actually being fired.

Let’s review step-by-step the process of conducting an effective reference check in our next article. We use a 4-step process for obtaining effective reference information.