Jobs

Many companies never take time or effort to check applicants’ references. Chances are that they don’t know the full story about who they are hiring!

The reference check is probably the most ignored part of the job-search process. Companies only proceed with references when they are about to make an offer to someone or in rare cases, when they are trying to decide between two candidates they consider to be equal. In this case, the references could be the deciding point to determine which of the two candidates gets the job! By carrying out references, chances are enough information to decide who will be the best final applicant to hire for your company is determined.

For an HR manager, completing the reference checks will enhance your confident in the integrity of the company’s selection process. Checking references also protects you as an employer if you hire someone who proves to be a liability. For example, an employee who steals from the company and was released from a prior employer for the same reason. You don’t want your HR department to be considered negligent because you didn’t do your homework. If you personally don’t want to check references, out-source the task, but manage the sub-contractors. Tell them the information you are seeking and specific questions you want answered.

For job applicants, the reference check stage of the job-search process cannot be underestimated. People lose out on job offers at this stage and in many cases don’t even realise it! If you find that you perform well in interviews, make it to the reference check stage, but then don’t get a job offer, you should examine your references and figure out if there is a problem. If one or more of your references are not giving you a glowing reference, you need to know about it so that you can find out why and replace them.


If you have put a lot of time and effort to get this close to getting a new job, don’t risk throwing it away, at the reference check stage.
A poor reference check will most likely cost one a job. Of course, no one is perfect and you are certainly not asking your references to lie about your background. But if you use someone as a reference, who refuses to even provide a reference check for you or gives you a poor one, expect to lose out on jobs.