Xref provides efficiency beyond their expectations for Solotel

What drove you to switch from manual to automated reference checks?

In the hospitality industry, no one works normal business hours except, technically, us in the head office and support teams. This can make conducting reference checks a nightmare if you’re trying to catch venue managers on the phone when they’re on the restaurant or bar floor.

While casual and contracted employees are hired and managed in-venue, our recruitment team of two looks after all the hiring for permanent roles across the business. This can mean that we are looking to fill up to 15 roles at any one time, which is demanding and requires a lot of time ensuring we have done our due diligence on hires.

Due to the nature of our front of house roles, in particular, we have had background screening solutions in place for some time and reference checks have always been a critical component of our recruitment process.

But we hadn’t realised how much more insight and efficiency a reference checking provider could offer us until we met Xref.

What was your brief for Xref?

We are a small talent team with high-volume, fast-paced recruitment requirements. We needed a solution that could work at our speed while ensuring that references were accurate and trustworthy.

What has been the outcome of using Xref?

Xref has genuinely changed our lives.

It integrated seamlessly with our existing ATS, JobAdder, and we can now really quickly and easily transition to the reference checking process.

When we first heard about the platform, our only objection was that it might stop us from probing when a referee makes a comment we want some more detail on. The team was quick to reassure us that we are still able to call referees but now it’s on their terms and under their agreement to do so, having said they'd be happy to take a call at the end of the reference questionnaire.

The speed, convenience, and customisability of the platform have been the biggest benefits for us. It now takes us around 24 hours on average to conduct a reference check and we have found we’ve really been able to tailor the questions to make sure they align with our own brand values.

The time we’ve got back allows us to focus more on the aspects of our job that really require headspace and clear thinking, such as our talent acquisition strategy and new venue openings.

The fact that the platform keeps working while we’re offline is also a godsend. This means we can progress the applications of overseas hires without the need for any late evening or early morning calls.

We value references and offers will only ever be made pending the return of reference checks. Previously, this could lead to days of delays, which always presents the risk of a great candidate being snapped up by the competition.

The feedback we receive now is fast, accurate and genuinely useful and we can be sure that nothing’s been forgotten or misinterpreted along the way.

One of the aspects of the solution that we hadn’t appreciated would make such an impact is the fraud detection feature. Since implementing Xref we have had four potential fraud cases detected, some of which were for senior, GM-level roles, and one applicant has been withdrawn from the recruitment process as a result.

We tell everyone that will listen about Xref, and our whole team is on board with it. I wish we’d had it for some of the previous high-profile venue launches that we’ve struggled through hours of calls and paperwork to fill roles for!