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When it comes to hiring new employees, a thorough background check is one of the most reliable ways to evaluate a potential candidate. For those in charge of seeking and hiring prospective employees for your business, a quick phone call or email to a candidate’s previous employer can make all the difference in determining if the woman or man applicant is qualified for the job.
But while making the call is easy enough, knowing what questions to ask a reference can be a bit trickier, especially if you want to gain insight into the applicant’s character, reliability, work ethic and overall qualifications. The right woman or man for the job will likely promote business growth and blend well with your workplace culture, but the wrong applicant could be disastrous to your company and current employees. Let ENTITY help! Take a look at this list of five questions that all employers should ask a reference before hiring someone.
Entrepreneur recommends asking this question to verify the relationship between the candidate and the reference listed on their resume or CV. Prospective employers should ask this question first so they can gauge whether the reference is even qualified to evaluate the applicant. For example, a co-worker will have a different relationship to the candidate than a boss or manager. Knowing the context of the relationship will give employers more insight into the applicant’s qualifications and character.
This is an essential question that will help confirm an applicant’s basic qualifications. An employer should make sure to ask the reference to confirm basic information like where the candidate went to school, what degree he or she earned, dates of employment and job title.
Potential employers might also want to verify any leadership positions or skills listed on the resume. This might seem a little extreme to the average applicant, but a 2014 CareerBuilder survey says otherwise. The online survey conducted by Harris Poll questioned 2,188 hiring managers and human resource professionals ages 18 and over to determine how often applicants lie on resumes. Some of the results were startling. The employers surveyed reported that 57 percent of applicants embellished their skill set, 34 percent lied about their job title, nearly one third lied about their degree and 18 percent listed awards they never earned.
Some memorable resume lies include those from a man who claimed to be an Olympic Gold Medalist, a candidate who listed 25 years of work experience at age 32 and another who claimed to have worked as a babysitter for celebrities like Tom Cruise and Madonna. The moral of the story? Ask a reference first!
This might sound like a strange question, but the answer to this question is one of the best indicators of how successful the applicant will be with your business. If the reference admits that he or she would not hire the candidate again, this should be an immediate red flag that indicates potential misconduct on the applicant’s part or a history of offenses. If multiple references respond this way, chances are that the applicant will not be a good fit, no matter how good he or she may look on paper.
It’s important to know ahead of time whether or not a potential employee can handle constructive criticism. An employer will probably rethink hiring a candidate that gets defensive or doesn’t adjust his or her behavior in response to critical evaluations. One of the marks of a great employee is the ability to respond to feedback accordingly, even if that hurts the candidate’s pride in the process. If the applicant is not able to do this, he or she probably isn’t mature enough for the job.
This question can easily get overlooked but it’s nevertheless very important to ask, especially since applicants might not want to share the answer on his or her resume. Ask about the circumstances that prompted the applicant to leave his or her last job. Did the candidate have to relocate to be near a partner or take care of a family member? Maybe he or she wasn’t a good fit for the business and was asked to leave because of unresolved issues.
Potential employers must ask these questions in order to ascertain whether or not the candidate would be a good fit for the business. The candidate’s answers will shed a lot of light on whether or not he or she will promote growth, enhance workplace culture or push back the company!
