Posted: June 1, 2010 at 11:48 am | Tags: Background checks, employment verification, interview tips, interviews, Reference checks
Reference checks. Do you swear by them, think they are a joke, or just get them over with quickly as an administrative formality?
Clients often ask us what we learn from checking references. Common refrains are: ”Isn’t it a waste of time? Don’t references just all say nice things?” or “Don’t most companies have a neutral reference policy just so they won’t get sued?”
We swear by them. We love checking references.
So what do we learn from checking references? Well, for starters we learn:
- How willing the candidate is to complete and return the release form.
- What kind of people are willing to be listed as references.
- How willing the references are to get back with us quickly.
- Whether the references were contacted in advance to expect our call.
- How willing the references were to share their time.
So simply asking for references tells you quite a bit. But going further, what do good references actually say when you talk to them? We advocate asking the references about job competencies, just like you did when you interviewed the candidate (”Tell me about a time when …”). But beyond their answers to your questions, what else should you be listening for?
Often references go beyond a candidate’s job competencies and tell us the candidate is:
- Personally engaged in their work, invested in getting results, but “does not take thing personally” when setbacks occur
- Curious to learn more about their work
- Willing to share information
- Happy to go above and beyond what is expected, perhaps working too hard. Sometimes not knowing when to stop improving something
- Easy to work with, accommodating, upbeat
- Professional in demeanor
- Likes to be challenged
- Willing to take the ball and run with it
- Good at asking the right questions, tracking down resources, and solving problems
- Great at communicating, easy to manage
By and large, great people have great references. At the end of a good reference call, you should feel more energized and excited about hiring the candidate. If you don’t, it should be a red flag for you.
So, if you are not getting a signed reference release, or if you are getting a release and not calling the references personally, or if you are calling the references personally but not hearing glowing feedback like this … well, then you might want to adjust your hiring process.
Posted: February 1, 2010 at 10:51 am | Tags: advertising, hiring freeze, interview tips, interviews, Job performance, staffing
Finding qualified candidates for many positions has gotten a bit easier. But paradoxically, finding candidates who “wow” the hiring manager has actually gotten harder. Much harder.
Why? One reason is that manager expectations rise in a downturn – and this is just how it should be. Because it takes a higher caliber employee to get the same business results now – you simply must raise the bar on hiring expectations or your company performance will inevitably decline. And for people who do not accept this business imperative, that is exactly what makes hiring in this job market so frustrating.
Posted: October 30, 2009 at 3:53 pm | Tags: Admin., administrative, interview, interview tips, interviews, Job performance
Do you have Resume Bias
One of the biggest causes of your staffing problems may be your own resume bias. No, I am not referring to age, gender, race or religious bias. Hopefully you are not biased in that way – none of us want to think of ourselves as biased in any way, but most people are “resume biased.”
We all form these mental pictures of what a good resume should look like, and then we reject everyone who does not fit our mental picture. In my experience, this ”resume bias” is just as damaging to your hiring as any other kind of bias because, like other forms of bias, it excludes highly qualified people you need to be considering.
A resume bias overemphasizes how, where and when a candidate acquired their skills and experience while ignoring attributes than are not easily demonstrated on paper. It assumes you know something about someone solely based on the facts presented on the resume. Remember, you are hiring a person, not a resume. And a resume cannot demonstrate vital work behaviors, those all important attributes that we call “fit.”
We work hard to avoid resume bias in our search process, we celebrate the non-traditional candidates and don’t put much stock in the “perfect resume.” While many resumes may appear to be well-aligned with a position, we know we will rule out about 70% of the people we talk to – and some of the people we rule in will have very non-traditional resumes. Often the non-traditional career path (the “bad” resume) is the best qualified candidate.
A resume is a poor representation of a person, yet a recent survey showed that “relevant work experience” is the major criteria on which top executives are hired. And while, on the surface, that appears to make sense, the survey showed that “fit” factors - like the ability to work with teams, or learn new things – were almost completely overlooked. That is the very definition of resume bias.
Knowing that, it’s really no wonder that executive tenure is shortening, declining to an average of just 2.3 years.
So, if you have someone screening resumes for you, be sure to insist that they present to you at least a few “non-traditional” candidates. You’ll be glad you did.
Posted: July 23, 2009 at 2:25 pm | Tags: interview tips, interviews
I can’t tell you how many people I have seen actually lose their jobs over being late. Just this week I had to release someone for that reason, and the sad part is their actual job performance was not a problem.
So much of success is just showing up, but you must remember to show up ON TIME!