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I'm an actual honest-to-goodness HR person, so here's my take on references, and what I would say to a hiring manager before he or she actually hired someone.

References are a critical part of the hiring process. In fact, I don't recommend that anyone ever hire someone without them. There are 3 parts to the applicant evaluation process: the resume (i.e., what the applicant thinks about themselves), the interview (what the manager thinks of the applicant), and the reference (what someone else, preferably a supervisor, thinks about the applicant.) You can't get a good picture of an applicant without all 3 pieces... the resume gives you an idea of what sort of experience and areas of expertise the applicant has, the interview allows you to get more detailed information about specific areas of the job that concern you, and the reference lets you know what kind of employee the applicant might be, because you're talking to people who've known the applicant in an employee's context.

I've seen TONS of situations where the resume looked good, the applicant seemed perfectly reasonable in the interview, but the reference went something like "Oh yeah, Bob's a great employee: very smart and helpful... when he's here." which is pretty obvious, but you also get subtle things like "Bob works really well by myself. He prefers not to work in groups if he can help it." which might be a turnoff if you're hiring into a dynamic team environment. Oh yeah, and did I mention that, when asked, Bob said "Absolutely... I'm always prompt coming to work" and "Team player? Absolutely! I love teams!" when asked about it in the interview.

Here's the key, though: the references you supply to a potential employer are supplied by you, which means you're free to submit the names of those people who'll put you in the best possible light. Employers understand that people move around and you might've lost touch with some, but you should be able to produce someone somewhere in your work history who can talk to your abilities. If you can't, well, then that does say something about your employability. If there's no one in your work past who would be willing to hire you back, why should I hire you into my organization?

Bottom line is technical experience and first impressions in an interview are not (and, indeed, cannot) be the only criteria by which job applicants should be judged. Resumes and interviews are often misleading, or at least give false impressions. You do not want the most technically proficient super genius working for you... if they never come to work, or don't work well with your employees, or don't have a good attention to detail, or are disruptive in the workplace etc. etc. etc. Where else will you get this kind of information except in a reference? And as for the amount of time they take up, yeah, it's a burden (on the references themselves) which is why I encourage managers to only check references of the applicants that are on the "short list" (i.e., the top 2 or 3) who've already been interviewed and are serious candidates for employment. Saves everyone a lot of time.

Gary Blackburn
Trained Killer


In reply to Re: At what stage in a job interview process should references come into play? by Trimbach
in thread At what stage in a job interview process should references come into play? by princepawn

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