Employment Reference Checks - Providing and Receiving

It's becoming more and more challenging for companies to conduct employment reference checks on potential new hires. It's not only frustrating to those doing the hiring but also to those looking to be hired.

Gone are the days when a former employer openly shared insights into a departed employee's performance and productivity. These days, your lucky to confirm the basics such as job title and employment dates. A company's Human Resource representative is more likely to only share the bare minimum of information required.

Contacting a potential new employee's former managers, coworkers and even character references will hopefully produce the results you require but not always.  Some people are very hesitant to provide any information at all!

One of the reasons for this shift is due to tighter privacy legislation resulting in a reduced comfort level that once may have existed in sharing feedback on performance - employers aren't sure what they can and cannot say for fear of reprisal.

Increased litigations are another cause for alarm in providing input on former employees. There have been reported cases where employers/managers have given inaccurate or even negative references, which ultimately prevented employees from getting hired.

As well, employment reference checks fall under a legal category of "qualified privilege" where the candidate is protected under claims where the chances of being hired were depleted due to a former employer not providing a reference of any kind.

Even if a former employer is willing to respond to questions, at times the only response is you may get out of them is a "yes" or "no" answer. From the candidate perspective, this can be viewed as a hindrance in getting made the job offer as usually employment is pending on successful reference checks.

Here are some helpful tips to remember when providing and conducting employment references:

• If possible, have the same representative from your company conduct reference checks to maintain consistency in questions being asked and to avoid miss-use of information collected
• When giving a reference check on a former employee, answer questions honestly, even if negative, as employers can only be sued if the responses provided are false and dishonest
• Ensure the person providing the reference doesn't have an axe to grind with the former employee as this may result in inaccurate information and potential litigation issues
• As part of the hiring process, request the candidate sign a waiver stating they agree to release contact names and numbers for reference checks so as not to have any miscommunication with whom to contact for feedback
• Refer to the reference check as a "conversation" when calling the reference in order to open up the conversation with a more informal approach
• Ask open ended questions to avoid the straight yes and no responses
• Never gain a reference from anyone the candidate hasn't given authorization to contact - again use a waiver to protect both the company and the candidate
• Prepare questions in advance and be consistent with each candidate to avoid discrimination issues if the person isn't hired based on the reference results
• Be objective and not overly anxious to hire the first candidate to walk through the door - do the homework to avoid costly repeat hiring
• Probe to get more detailed responses to your questions if you aren't satisfied with the answer.