Reference Checking is one of the hardest activities in a hiring process.  Every candidate is willing to provide references but how do you know if the information provided in a reference is accurate?

The main problem with reference checking is the “spoken word”. As soon as a reference opens their mouth to answer your question on the candidate they freeze. The reference doesn’t want to say anything bad that will hinder the candidate getting the job.

A few years ago we figured that if we could eliminate the “spoken word” from the reference check we would start to get more accurate information from the reference on the candidate.  This is exactly what happened.

In a nutshell here is what we did. We decided on key competencies / attributes of what a client would want in a sales candidate. We designed a scorecard that allowed references to score the candidate on the competencies / attributes and used technology to do the rest.

Now, a sales candidate scores themselves in the key competencies / attributes and through an email automated delivery system the (up to) five references score the candidate in the same elements. The system then provides easy to read graphs to see the common elements of each person providing the reference compared to how the candidate scored themselves. You now look for gaps!

Bottom line – it works! Move your next reference check away from talking to people on the phone and let technology do the rest. For more information see http://www.hireresults.ca