Reference checks – meticulous or mundane?

Reference checks – meticulous or mundane?

Cathy Fyock, in her book `The Truth about Background and Reference Checks When Hiring’ says a candidate with the perfect academic background and the right experience, in addition to professing all the competencies you are looking for, could be a potential `scam-didate’.

Many corporate scandals have focused on falsification of candidates’ credentials. Statistics reveals that about 36% of job applications are found to stretch the truth and at times to the point of mis-stating background, experience and credentials. This scary number was an eye opener for the corporate world and has made the HR professionals sit up. The relevance of reference checks has been perceivably growing in the last few years and organizations are striving to make the reference check process exhaustive. Many companies outsource their reference check process to make it objective and detailed.

Reference checks on the one hand, are meant to verify academic information and work experience. On the other hand, HR also looks to check competencies and assess traits during the process. Bearing in mind that all said it is the job applicant who provides the names of people who will be the reference, one can expect positive and promising answers. Checking references could be more effective when done in person or on phone as compared to email reference checks. As some behavioral psychologists say more can be learnt from the manner of response than the content of it. A simple question like `will you re-hire this person’ can fetch a telling response face to face or on phone than just a tick mark against the question.

A recent experience of a candidate hire proved to be quite a learning with regard to reference checks on behaviors and characteristics. The person giving the reference had only good things to say about the candidate’s work and passion to achieve. Satisfied with the information, the individual conducting the check asked one last question – what is the one thing that you will aim to correct in this candidate. The person on the other side stated very briefly that the candidate has a tendency to indulge in gossip. Not taking this point seriously, as it reflected on innate traits not directly relating to performance, job offer was made and the candidate joined. Needless to explain how much of unnecessary speculation on salaries, incentives, even office romance had to be curtailed within the team

A fresher claimed to be the President of Students’ Council in his college – a commendable post worthy only of those with responsibility, accountability and leadership at a young age. When referenced he proved to have been a mere hall monitor and by sheer virtue of his height and size at that!

Lack of uniformity in job application could reveal why the candidate is clear about all details of his work in some of his earlier companies, but has skipped information with regard to some. Periods of the past where the candidate has not mentioned work or study imply either he/she has been without a job or has worked but does not want to include the experience as the separation has not been clean. Misrepresented information or glaring inconsistencies on the resume̒ or application indicates candidate is hiding critical information with regard to his career or academics. Inappropriate reasons for leaving a job show there’s no truth in the matter. One senior candidate said he was a whistle blower and the company let go of him for fear of skeletons falling off the cupboard. When checked, it turned out that the whistle was blown indeed, but it was against the candidate’s unethical work practices!

No longer considered to be one amongst hiring methods or a mere option in recruitment reference check has emerged as a strong tool to check suitability and sincerity of the candidate. Once proved credible in the reference check exercise, he/she deserves in all aspects, the job that is being offered.

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