According to Checkster Research, employers should be completing four reference checks on any candidate before hiring him or her. But a reference check is only as good as its structure, which should include: asking the right questions; listening carefully to the answers, especially what isn’t said; following up on what seems like obfuscation or glossing over information; listening between the lines and probing into vague answers; and coordinating the information from different people to form a single picture. Although automated reference checking can cut back on significant time and allows former employers to answer a few basic questions regarding job performance, there is nothing quite like the human gut reaction.
