Conflicting Reference Checks: How Should HR Decide on Hiring a Candidate?

How can HR managers evaluate a reference check report of a prospective employee objectively, especially when the feedback from multiple organizations where he has worked may be diametrically opposite? Out of seven companies where the candidate had worked, five may have given him an excellent reference while a couple may have given a poor rating. Should the candidate be hired?

Dear Bhowal Kaushik,

In what capacity have you raised the post? Are you the candidate in question or the HR Manager who is hiring the candidate?

Have you conducted reference checks from the candidate's seven companies? Why was there a need to perform so many checks? If the hiring decision were to be based solely on the recommendations of past employers, what role would the recruitment department have?

Members of this forum expect sufficient background information to be provided.

Recruitment Process

Recruitment is about assessing the candidate's competence, personality, etc. A skillful interviewer asks questions to evaluate the candidate's personality. The responses given by the candidate should drive the hiring decisions.

Evaluating Feedback

What if the past employer gives negative feedback purely out of malice? Should malicious feedback be accepted at face value? Conversely, what if the candidate is not suitable, but the employer provides overly positive feedback? Wouldn't the feedback be deceptive in either case?

Please provide us with sufficient information about the case at hand. When guesses become replies, it may not serve the purpose of raising the post at all.

Thanks,

Dinesh Divekar

Hi,

In some companies, referral checks are carried out as a customary procedure. If the employer has already decided to hire based on the unique skill set or experience of the employee, they might not pay much attention to feedback and just proceed with their decision. It happened some time back that, even after we gave negative feedback to an employee who had absconded without information, the absconded employee was hired by the new employer based on their need for that particular level. Also, HR managers cannot make unilateral decisions in certain cases. If the technical team feels that the candidate is too good for the role and in the absence of more suitable candidates, HR is forced to recruit. Ultimately, production or project requirements decide all these factors.

Employer feedback is very subjective and depends on a lot of factors. As my colleague Dinesh mentioned above, past employer feedback is only one factor in the recruitment and selection process. If you have a robust and well-documented process that is followed by all managers when recruiting staff, then you will find the right people based on a range of factors. You should never discount potentially excellent candidates based on a couple of less-than-glowing referee reports if they meet all the other criteria you have set out for the job.