It's a clever idea, but as someone who has worked for (and listed as references) supervisors who were extremely flaky, extremely busy, or both, I would never want to judge someone based solely on whether or not their references promptly return a call.
I love the idea. I've always been skeptical of references - if anyone asked me about any staff I've had, I'd be pretty positive. Why burn bridges and start vendettas? There's definitely a few people I wouldn't call back for, but I'd call back for any of the people that were fantastic to work with. That means either really good at their job, or average+ with an amazing attitude (which can be the right ticket for some roles).
I might halfway pause and start a bad reference with, "Well..." and let the manager guess if he's perceptive enough, but I'd never speak ill of a former staff member. Too much chance of it biting the company back - it'd be pretty damn irresponsible of me to do that. But not calling back? Yeah, I'd do that. For great people? Callback the same day I get the message, no matter how busy, at least for a 90 second chat. Maybe I'm not everybody, but I think most halfway competent managers go out of their way to take care of the great people they've worked with.
Why would you bother or care about the opportunities of some guy who you might never meet again, especially if you are trying to meet a deadline or had a bad day or whatever.
You need to have fierce loyalty to the people that help you do great things in life. When someone works with you, and especially when they work under your guidance, they're making you successful and the company successful. In return, you do what's right by them, keep them informed, equipped, protect them, stand with them, and so on.
I've got fierce loyalty pretty high in my ethics, but there's a lot of pragmatic reasons too. On any one event, you could blow it off, but it's pretty obvious on the whole who goes to bat for their people and who doesn't. It's not something you make a calculation on - "Hmm, no one will know or care if I don't help this particular time." It's a way of life - take care of people that take care of you. Feels good inside, world sees it, recognizes it, and treats you well. A good thing, top to bottom.
Anyone have any evidence that this works? Other than just the fact that it sounds like a nice idea.
In years of calling references I never found them to be a predictor of anything at all. You get great references for awful candidates and vice versa. I don't even bother any more unless I know the reference personally.
Yup. This is especially true if a person is still employed. I've known bosses to give absolutely glowing references to otherwise-unfireable people just in the hopes of getting rid of them.
Imho references to people you don't know are close to meaningless, especially in the tech field. It's good to know where a given candidate has worked before and what his duties were. But that's normally in their CV and from there it's all up to your judgement and testing.
A few more reasons why references are worthless:
- Many countries have laws that explicitly forbid said references to tell you anything that could "hinder the candidates efforts to find a new job".
- Without knowing the company and people the candidate listed as reference you have little means to judge their assessment.
- Even if a candidate delivered perfect results in his previous environment that does not mean he'll function equally well in your environment. Your people, your tech, your salary will all be different.
The article looks like the typical pseudo-science to me (is the author selling a book, perhaps?). In reality the references are amongst the smallest factors to consider.
At least in the tech-field a skilled interviewer will know what he needs to know after an hour of talking to the candidate. Paperwork is secondary.
This only works if you're requiring lots of references, so you can look at the percentage response. Most hiring processes want 2-3. That's an awful lot to leave up to chance.
Far better just to know how to interview a reference on the phone. If you're looking for the "is the candidate outstanding" response, just ask for specific details about what made the candidate outstanding. A crappy pro-forma reference won't have any.
If you were really serious about references, you'd track down backdoor references anyways.
If you're looking for the "is the candidate outstanding" response, just ask for specific details about what made the candidate outstanding.
The strategy, such that it is, is designed to get around the reality that many, many bosses are only allowed to say "I can confirm that $CANDIDATE worked from $START_DATE to $END_DATE and his final position was $TITLE." If you ask "Is the candidate outstanding? What specifically makes you think so?", you will hear "I can confirm that $CANDIDATE worked from $START_DATE to $END_DATE and his final position was $TITLE."
That said, like many brilliant engineering ideas for evading legal requirements by simple logical tricks that a profession filled with people who are paid $300 an hour to think of loopholes totally can't see coming, I strongly doubt this idea will work. You're not selecting for outstanding candidates, you're selecting for managers who are not risk-adverse.
A risk-adverse manager will ignore your little logic trap, call you, and say "I am returning your phone call with regards to $CANDIDATE. I can confirm that $CANDIDATE worked from $START_DATE to $END_DATE and his final position was $TITLE. Have a nice day." He will then document that he was asked for a reference for $CANDIDATE and followed company procedure to the letter. You have learned no useful information from this, aside from "Ahh, $PREVIOUS_COMPANY has a corporate policy to not provide useful references"
As much as this is great for the employer, it really stinks for the candidate. Even a mediocre reference is a reference. It proves that you at least worked somewhere and did something. That said, I'd never list a bad reference.
References are funny things. If you have to call them, you probably shouldn't hire the candidate anyways. If you have that much doubt in their skills, or integrity you're likely to feel that way regardless of their references.
On the other side, if you ask someone to be a reference, make sure 1) that you had a real working relationship and 2) to explicitly ask them 'would you be willing to provide a strong reference for me'.
In computational theory this would be called a zero-knowledge proof. Especially if the inquirer doesn't pick up any return calls... Sorry, just had an exam.
