An overlooked part of the hiring process is the reference checks. In large companies, we sometimes leave this to HR. In smaller companies (and the large ones too) we leave this to the end of the hiring process. You know, when you say, I want to make an offer to this person, “Let’s check references.”
This shortchanges the reference process is several ways. First, we have fallen ‘in love’ with this candidate. That makes us have ‘happy ears’. We don’t hear warning signals. We ask inane questions. “would you hire this person again? What were his/ her challenges in their position? And others like that.
And, we are asking these questions of the people that the candidate gave us. Face it, the candidate can find three people to say nice things about them. Even then, they have been trained by lawyers never to answer real reference questions.
