Are Telephone Reference Checks Really Useful or Just a Formality? Share Your Thoughts

Dear Friends,

Can you tell me if doing reference checks over the telephone is really useful? Personally, I do not think so, as most of the references will give positive feedback. Kindly give me your opinions on it.

Jagdish

Ref. checks are very important because at times, even though a candidate has cleared all rounds of the interview and found apt for a job, ref. checks have thrown up unknown details about his/her past performance or behavioral issues leading to rejection of the candidate. Of course, getting the reference names from the candidate himself may not always work out since the people he refers would be ones who would give a good reference about him most of the time.

It is better to ref. check with at least 4 or 5 references of ex-superiors from as many of the candidate's previous companies and back it up by informal ref checks from the candidate's current or ex-colleagues. It is important to specifically ask for the weaknesses of the candidate and instances where the candidate proved his/her ethical standards.

The best way would be to engage a field verification agency and pay them to do a thorough background check at the residence and offices of the candidate. This would, of course, delay the recruitment process and increase the cost initially but will be a surefire way of avoiding a wrong hire.

Regards,

Raajjesh Sai HR Chennai

Hi,

How about taking details from junior colleagues of the prospective candidate? You may ask for 3 or 4 professional references of people who had been reporting to the shortlisted candidate, including their current designations and company phone details. Your comments on this would be appreciated.

Regards, Bhupesh

Thanks to everyone for their contributions. The main points I would like to address are:

Firstly, is it a validated process to conduct telephonic reference checks? Secondly, is it acceptable to check a person's references while they are still employed, considering that they may be perceived differently at work once it is known that they are job hunting?

I would appreciate your opinions on this matter. I understand the importance of reference checks; however, in many companies, HR often conducts reference checks hastily over the phone, limiting it to a mere administrative formality.

Jagdish

Hi Jagdeesh,

I completely agree on the second point that you have mentioned. When an employer conducts a reference check for an employee who is currently working, it is going to be very difficult for that employee. I have personally experienced that this doesn't even give you a clear picture of the employee.

Regards.

Dear All,

Taking into consideration all the aforementioned facts as experienced by my other friends, could anybody suggest any foolproof system for conducting these checks?

Jagdish

Frankly, I have never understood how a reference check becomes the final statement on the capabilities of a candidate.

Reference checks may be relevant to assess a person's general character, but they can never be sufficiently reliable vis-a-vis a candidate's qualifications for the position unless a candidate has successfully bluffed his/her way through an incompetent screening process or screening team.

In a man-eating-man scenario that we continuously encounter in the post-meltdown era, many commentators, while giving references, often tend to lie about good candidates by providing negative references to retain openings for their own near and dear ones who may be incompetent but will succeed in eliciting favorable references due to their connections. Lying can go both ways.

The bottom line is that this process is useless, which explains why many HR professionals merely take it as a formality and complete the exercise superficially.

Come to think of it, if reference checks were even half as useful as they are made out to be, the world would not have seen the economic bloodbath that we are still struggling to emerge from over two years after it first struck.

Dear Vikas Sahay,

A very warm welcome to CiteHR.com! You joined yesterday, and on the very same day, you posted this wonderful, thought-provoking post/opinion. It is like a cricketer scoring a maiden century on debut!

I agree with each sentence of your post, although conventional HR wisdom may find them unreasonable. I especially liked the last paragraph:

"Come to think of it, if reference checks were even half as useful as they are made out to be, the world would not have seen the economic bloodbath that we are still struggling to emerge from over 2 years after it first struck."

Well said! As they say in advertisements of financial instruments and funds: PAST PERFORMANCE IS NOT AN INDICATOR OR GUARANTEE OF FUTURE PERFORMANCE.

Do participate in the discussions actively. I shall look forward to more of your posts/threads in the future.

Warm regards.