Shawnee Love   •  
September 26, 2012

I often hear that references are a waste of time because no one ever gives a reference who will say anything bad about them.  However, this assumption is false in my experience and misunderstands the reason for doing references.  References are not about finding dirt on a candidate (although I won’t ignore dirt if it is revealed).  Instead, references:

• Tell us about past performance which we hope is an indicator of future performance (may or may not be true),
• Verify information (i.e., call out lies or inconsistencies),
• Calibrate a candidate’s expectations and ethics with another source, and
• Gather information that will help you manage and coach the employee.

Reference red flags are:

Perfectly positive

No one is perfect nor is anyone 100% perfect for any job.  In fact, if a candidate was sounding too perfect, I would assume s/he would be bored and not want to hire her anyway.  I don’t let references get away with glowing feedback without identifying the ways the candidate can improve.  Honest references share the strengths and weaknesses of the individual they speak on behalf of and will give very candid feedback if you ask the right questions.  If the reference can’t identify anything the candidate can improve on, either the reference has a very simple view of managing or the reference is not saying something.

No specifics

If a referee is unwilling to provide details, I wonder why.  For example, an ex-employee may negotiate a positive reference letter from a company in order to go away quietly.  These negotiated reference letters can be misleading because they are vague and general and don’t discuss the problematic behaviours that resulted in the employee’s exit.  General or vague references (written or verbal) are only valuable if you can figure out what they aren’t saying.  To that end, the things most often discussed in references and reference letters are:

• Attendance
• Attitude
• Initiative/Motivation
• Work Performance
• Ability to Work with Others/ Team Player
• Ethics

(in no particular order).

If you are reviewing a short reference letter, look through and see which of this list is missing because what is missing may point to where the performance problems were.  Know that if you call for more information, chances are you will not get much because no one wants to risk being sued for giving their opinion and they will struggle to find anything nice to say.  It is up to you to extrapolate and decide if the risks outweigh the potential rewards.

Inconsistency

If a reference tells me something that doesn’t agree with what the candidate said, that is a warning signal.  I usually will ask a few more questions to ensure I am not misinterpreting.  Depending upon the extent of the distortion, I may give the candidate a chance to explain, but if it is a major disagreement I will cut the candidate loose.  Serious inconsistencies indicate lies.

Telling pauses

When doing a phone reference, if the referee doesn’t want to answer questions s/he will often leave long pauses while thinking of how to frame the answer.  If the referee has to frame it, I have to worry.

Refusing to answer

Lots of companies are only willing to supply a tombstone reference: Name, Job Title, Dates of employment.  While that in itself is not a red flag, if a candidate can’t find anyone to provide an actual reference instead of name, rank and serial number, that is indicative of a poor work history.  Even high school kids can find a teacher, family friend or pastor to speak on their behalf, so a good candidate should be able to as well.

Negative feedback

It should go without saying that if a reference tells you how bad a candidate is, you should consider that a red flag.  Interestingly, when helping exit a problem employee, I often find the employee was hired despite negative feedback from references.  If you choose to ignore or overlook a reference’s feedback, why bother doing references?

What red flags have you found when doing reference checking?