Dive Brief:

• According to a recent poll from SkillSurvey, reference checking continues to be a large and near-integral part of the hiring process, particularly for more senior roles.
• About 70% of respondents to the poll indicated that they reference check for every job candidate, but for executive management positions, 84% conduct reference checks. More often, recruiters handle reference checks instead of hiring managers.
• Reference checking comes in just behind background screening (77%) as the most utilized method of “obtaining candidate insight,” according to their press release, but it comes out ahead of skills assessment (55%), behavioral based assessments (39%) and personality assessments (33%).

Dive Insight:

While SkillSurvey also handles reference checking as part of the services they provide, it is important for HR leaders to keep the recruiting standby in mind, particularly when hiring for higher-level roles.

Doing reference checking effectively can give a hiring manager a clearer look into a candidate’s personality and work ethic as well as serve as a fact-check for the candidate’s resume. To reduce frustration with reference checking, experts suggest using a structured reference form, asking questions about job-related skills, recording replies using a quantitative scale, and getting responses from more than just one reference.