High time you stop reference checking- Here is why

Posted by Alen Parker on September 12th, 2019

While people are looking to advance their business by investing in automation relentlessly, recruitment can still be considered as one of those areas where the process is still quite obsolete at most of the workplaces. In short, there is a long way for the recruitment department to be able to call itself doing something truly innovative or advanced. While a few little changes have been there like the HR department is companies have started using Recruitment and attendance management software. But, there still are some practices that may be really important but are just now done for the namesake.

One such practice is that of the reference checking. Earlier the process was done to check whether the potential hire has told everything truthfully to the company or not. But, now the process holds little value because of the way it is executed.

So, in our opinion, here is what can be done about it. Do give it a read.

In my opinion, trust is what you should learn to have. Believe in your instinct and take the interview properly so as to ascertain how true the person is being with you. For instance, if you are interviewing marketing personnel then you should ask him to talk about the accomplishments and show you the work they have done. After that, if the person is capable enough and he has backed up the things he said by work samples etc, we don’t see any reason for you to do reference checking.

However, if you still want to continue doing the same, please don’t do it like you have been doing it all this while. Here is what you should do.

Hire a company to do the same-

Hiring a company for this task is always better than trying to do it on your own as you can’t. A proper background verification check includes many things like checking the address mentioned, the companies mentioned and seeing if there are any police cases in the past. The company people who are dedicatedly providing these services actually go to the hometown and current address to check the same and everything else which is mentioned.

Ask only for the former manager-

Let this be handled by the hiring manager. Allow them to talk to the managers of not the current company but the previous one. Otherwise, the employee may not feel comfortable in sharing the information.

Or else…
When you already know that a candidate has the potential and that he can serve the company well, then why to waste your time in doing this check. Moreover, if you are not doing it the right way, there isn’t really any point in wasting time. Just use HROne recruitment and attendance management software to get the hire on board soon.

Besides, now that we have spoken our side, comment down below what is your opinion in this context. Should you hire without check or not?