Recruitment
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6
min read
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If you’re looking to grow your team this year, it pays to hire right the first time around. But did you know that reference checks are more than simply a box-ticking exercise?
Reference checks, when done correctly, can offer information about your candidate to help you make an informed decision about whether your candidate has the right skills and is a suitable fit for your organisation.
When you ask the right questions about a candidate, you can go beyond organisational compliance and learn strengths, weaknesses and deep insights about that person to ensure they are the right hire for your organisation.
In the long run, the right hire may reduce costs as your organisation experiences increased retention and reduced attrition.
With the new year underway, it may be worth adjusting your hiring and reference check processes. Now is the time to ensure you are asking the right reference check questions to ensure you secure top talent, quickly and with ease.
In this blog, we explore how to make the most of your reference checking questionnaire so you hire the right person for your open roles.
Reference checks are important because they offer insight into the talent you are considering hiring. A reference check can do more than raise red flags. An effective reference check can disclose insights about your candidate that you may have missed while reviewing their resume and during the interview process.
Reference checks ensure compliance, identify areas in which your candidate may need further development, and uncover opportunities for growth.
When conducting an employment reference check, you must first build an effective reference survey with the right questions that elicit measurable feedback and valuable insights.
Conducting reference checks is more than contacting a previous manager to confirm a candidate’s skills and experience.
An excellent reference check will allow you to compare and contrast different candidates and dive deeper into skill sets to ensure you make a confident final decision on the right hire for your workplace.
When compiling your reference questionnaire, Xref’s Head of Customer Success and Account Management, Rachel Davidson offers five tips. These are useful when conducting automated reference checks through online providers like Xref.
These tips are most effective when applied to automated reference checks. Phone-based checks may be shorter but, online reference checks give you the opportunity to expand your reference questionnaire to dive into detail about your candidate. This increases your peace of mind about hiring the right candidate for your open role.
More than a background check, a strong reference check will ask questions that offer valuable, measurable feedback.
A good set of reference questions should confirm the data provided by the candidate during their job application.
Ultimately, reference questions can be broken down into three categories:
To ensure compliance, don’t ask questions about a candidate’s age, relationships, or family life. Try Xref’s reference template builder which offers best-practice HR questions.
Start by confirming the candidate/referee relationship.
‘What was the period and nature of your working relationship?’
Verify the candidate’s previous job title and general duties.
‘What was the focus of the role as well as main duties and responsibilities?’
‘Please rate and comment on their computer skills and ability to adopt new software.’
‘How well did they work autonomously?’
Look for insights about previous performance to reveal strengths, weaknesses and areas of growth.
‘What are the strengths of this candidate?’
‘Anything they can improve upon?’
‘Where do you see them growing/progressing?’
‘Can you give any information about how the candidate handled a situation like…’
Finally, a key question to understand if this candidate is the right hire for your organisation is uncovering why they may be leaving and if the referee would work with the candidate again in the future.
‘Would you hire this person again, and why/why not?’
In your reference survey, you may wish to include specific questions about the work environment of your organisation or the job offer.
Role-specific questions are especially relevant if your business requires specific skills or background knowledge. For example, your candidate may require medical experience or be responsible for the physical safety of individuals.
Understanding their previous exposure to these work requirements can ensure you confirm information found in your candidate’s CV, thus completing due diligence and ensuring compliance is maintained in your organisation.
Creating different surveys for different roles is especially valuable when exploring a candidate’s job-specific experience.
Build your reference survey in as little as 30 seconds, with results returned on average within 24 hours. No need to create new questionnaires every time you want to complete a reference check. You can reuse templates that you have tailored to the needs of your organisation.
With automation, Xref reference checks reduce the time-consuming task of playing phone tag with previous employers. Your candidate will submit their selected referees and the survey will automatically be sent for feedback.
Xref’s algorithm monitors multiple data touchpoints throughout the referencing process. The algorithm alerts you to any unusual activity, such as reference fraud, where someone may provide false information about your candidate.
Have peace of mind and confidence in your next hire. Xref reference reports offer easy to understand graphs that quantify skills and core competencies so you can compare and contrast candidates with ease.
A key question our customers ask when conducting an online reference check with Xref is ‘how can I hear what the referee thinks of the candidate with only written feedback?’ Tone of voice is vital when understanding how a referee feels about a candidate.
When referees use Xref, they can complete the reference survey in their own time. As such, we tend to find more substantial feedback is given in a written reference check versus over the phone.
Xref reference reports offer ‘sentiment analysis’ to assist talent acquisition and hiring managers in decision making. Xref’s sentiment analysis is calculated automatically based upon turnaround time taken to complete the reference check and number of words written.
Marley Monk, Xref’s Regional Director for APAC, says,
“We find approximately triple the amount of time is spent producing feedback [for written references]. As a result, [written reference checks] end up with about 60% more insights [compared to phone-based checks].”
Essentially, human behaviour tends to show that the more words written and the shorter the time taken to complete the reference, the more positively the referee views the candidate.
Reference checking is an important part of the hiring process. When the right questions are asked, a reference check can reveal vital information that can lead to confident hiring decisions.
A high-performing reference checking process will save recruiters time and ensure strong future hiring.
By conducting reference checks, employers can ensure they meet compliance and due diligence standards, whilst selecting the right hire for the available role.
Uncover data-driven, actionable insights with automated reference, pulse and exit surveys.
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