How to get the most out of references during recruitment.
Speak to any HR Team and they will tell you that recruitment is a heart-racing process. Talent is in short supply. Every company wants to hire the best candidates, and things can move pretty quickly to ensure that a competitor doesn’t make an offer first. Yet, this comes at a cost. By speeding through the recruitment process, hiring managers barely have enough time to carry out a thorough reference check!
Why do reference checks matter?
Traditionally, employees would bring a written reference letter to an interview, typically from a past employer. While this is still useful and certainly worth considering, some reference letters may be outdated by the time you are hiring the individual or too vague to make any judgement based on their content.
While you can gain a lot of valuable information about your prospective new employees during the interview process, especially if you also carry out skill-based assessments, carrying out a real-time reference check on your applicants can bring many benefits. Whether it’s through a call or via email, you have the opportunity to ask tailored questions about the candidate that are specific to your Company and the role being filled, to someone who has actually worked with the individual!
Reference checks provide an external perspective to the recruitment process through which you can cross-check your initial impressions about whether the individual is a good fit for their company. This can be a tricky situation to navigate, however. Not all ‘red flags’ should be considered as negatives, and different positive traits will be desirable to different companies. For example, a creative individual may not fit into a more traditional work culture but that person may be the perfect fit for your organisation. Similarly, someone who is deemed ‘hard to manage’ may bring innovative energy to your business.
So where do you begin when carrying out reference checks? Firstly, remember your objectives:
1. Gain a better understanding as to whether the candidate you are hiring has the skills (or the potential) to do the job you are hiring them to do.
2. Validate information the candidate has already told you.
3. Identify any red flags which you may not have noted in the interview process that may really impact the decision to hire the individual.
Once you’ve established your goals, we’ve put together a set of eight questions to ask when carrying out a reference call (or e-mail). These aim to help you achieve the three objectives stated above, and bring you to a closer understanding of the employee you are planning to hire.
Questions to ask during a reference check
1. Establish the relationship
“Tell me about how you and [name] worked together.”
2. Identify skills and attributes
“For this position, we need someone who can __________ [fill in the most important aspect/ goal e.g. take ownership of the sales funnel for XYZ product]. How would you rate [name] in achieving this goal/demonstrating this skill?”
3. Establish strengths
“What are [name’s] greatest strengths? What do you miss from their contribution when they were part of your team?”
4. Understand weak points
“What might they struggle with? Is there any area where they would need additional support in their first 90 days?”
5. Establish team dynamics (if relevant)
“In this role it is important that everyone pulls the same rope. How would you rate [name] on teamwork and accountability?” [Alternatively, if it is an individual contributor role you may ask – In this role [name] will be working independently to achieve _________ what is your feedback on his ability to work independently with minimal input from others?
6. Investigate resilience
“Can you give me an example of a setback or stressful challenge that [name] faced while working with you and tell me how he/she dealt with it?”
7. Understand compatibility
“On a scale of 1 to 10, compared to other people you’ve hired, how would you rate [name] on [tap in the core values of your brand/ team/ business]?”
8. Explore personal opinion:
“If you were to start your own Company, would you hire [name]? Why/why not?
After asking these questions, you will be a step closer to making a well-informed decision about whether or not to hire a potential candidate. Recruitment is a costly process on multiple levels. A little extra time taken during the hiring process will save you from hiring someone who is not the right fit for your role, or your company!
Questions adapted from Bruce M Anderson.
Looking for further guidance for your recruitment process? Get in touch to find out how we can help make recruitment a breeze by sending an email to info@thechangeagent.eu.
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