Answers to tricky HR questions: Getting better info from references
May 30, 2008 by Sam NarisiPosted in: Assessing the right candidate, Hiring, In This Week's E-Newsletter, Latest News & Views, References
Our team of experts fields real-life questions about every-day HR issues. Today’s topic: how to loosen tight-lipped reference contacts.
Question:
When we call potential employees references, they often refuse to do anything more than verify employment dates and positions. Is there any way we can get them to tell us more about the people we’re thinking about hiring?
Answer:
The first thing you can try is asking the applicants for help. That’s the advice of Mel Kleiman, author of Recruit Smarter, Not Harder.
Tell applicants that some of the people they listed are reluctant to talk about them. Ask if they could give the references permission to speak freely when you call. Sometimes that’s enough to get a real conversation going.
Also, during the interview, you can ask candidates what they think their references will say about them. Then when you call someone’s former boss, you aren’t stuck asking open-ended questions like, How would you rate Johns dependability?
Instead you can say something like, John told me you’d rate him as highly dependable, because he did (blank). Can you confirm that?
Questions like that are easier for references to answer, and at the very least, it’s a good way to get some back-up for what people say in the interview.
Tags: answers, reference checks, screening
May 30th, 2008 at 3:03 pm
A few other ideas:
1 – Have applicants sign a release when they come in for the interview. Sometimes faxing this to the reference will help them open up.
2 – Some states (e.g., California) have protections for reference givers–essentially unless you lie, you’re not going to be successfully sued. Providing this info may help.
3 – Not my first choice, but you can remind folks that getting in trouble for providing reference information is VERY rare.
July 21st, 2008 at 10:27 am
Another way of securing a reference is to provide the reference with what the responsibilities of your position are and ask the reference what they think of the individuals ability to perform those duties.
February 6th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
References can be a bit difficult to get sometimes. It’s also important that you build great relationships with people within your industry. That also helps. For example, I am in the hotel industry and know at least 90% of HR Managers around the area where my hotel is located. This makes my job a little easier. From my understanding former employee can not sue an employer if the information provided is honest and true. I’ve also seen cases where let’s say Employer A contacts Employer B for reference. Let’s say the employee was terminated from Employer B for violence (ie: stabbing another employee), and Employer B did not share this information with Employer A. Later the employee is terminated for the same reason from Employer A. My understanding is that Employer A can sue Employer B for not being honest and causing safety issue. We always want to make sure the information being provided to another party is accurate.
June 19th, 2011 at 11:03 pm
Great One…
I must say, its worth it! My link! ,many Thanks….