Terence Kenny looks at the importance of careful reference checking as part of the selection process

There is always a need to review company policies and practices concerning the taking of references.

For too long, reference checking has been little more than a formality for many of us - the least, as well as the last stage of the selection process.

One reason why some allege that a review is needed is because the desperation of unemployed or job threatened middle managers is leading them to be increasingly expansive - if not inventive - about their achievements and expertise.

Even if there is something in this, we must not let it reinforce this minimalist use of the reference as a guard against fraud and misrepresentation. The same forces of economic change that brought the unemployment have at the same time reinforced the opportunities to make more positive use of the reference.

The decline of long-term stays with one company is removing obstacles to useful reference checking. Where a candidate has been with one company for many years, there may be little choice but to rely on a reference from that company. This has usually meant that the job is actually, or all but, offered “subject to references”, since candidates may rightly fear for their standing in their companies if they fail to land the new job. The new company receives some protection from this practice, but has not received positive help in the choice between candidates.

Now that, increasingly, candidates have more jobs behind them - and more recent ones - we have greater opportunity to consider recent and relevant behaviour more fully. Furthermore, the very existence of more jobs helps in the tracing of those patterns, which we look for on which to base our predictions on future behaviour with us.

There is still further reason for a policy review. While many of us remain a trifle cynical about the barrage of “human resource management” issues over recent years, it must be admitted that it has helped everyone to grasp more clearly the importance of strategic issues and to highlight the importance of integrating more closely the personnel policies of the company, moving ever further away from bureaucratic and administrative preoccupations. This applies to reference taking too, which needs to be more closely integrated onto the selection and personnel policies, rather that remaining a somewhat discrete process. The rest of this article will give some leads as to what is implied by this.

Terence Kenny BA (Dunelm) B Litt (Oxon) CIPD was Personnel Director for several business groups within the Bowater Corporation, and has been both a client and associate of Jackson Taylor Executive Search over many years.

He is a former Vice President of the Institute of Personnel Management and was its Chief Examiner in the General Personnel Management papers. He was a founder member and tutor of the Manchester Business School and an external examiner at Brighton University.

Questions for a policy review

It may be helpful in reviewing policies and practices in this field to ask some simple questions, as below. The comments against them may provide some food for thought.

Why?

Beyond the simple checking of claimed facts we can use the reference for attempting to probe past behaviour, experience, knowledge, skills and achievements to assess how far carefully analysed job requirements of our own are matched. This is far from the vague and general requests for subjective impressions, of “strengths and weaknesses” for example, which are sometimes made. Having anchored enquiries round the job we can still look for more general evidence of character traits, of possible problems of adjustment to big culture differences between companies, of future training needs and of possible high potential for the future. How far we pursue any of these lines will depend on the nature and importance of the job, but our policy should recognise all such areas.

When?

Names of referees are often asked for on application forms but it is not always a
good idea to accept these uncritically so early. It can be better to discuss referees in the light of the interviews and selection process as it progresses and areas most promising for enlightenment are revealed. The very discussion about possible references often throws up more material for evaluation.

Having got the references, it is then difficult to decide when to contact them, not least from the need to restrict timing in accordance with the wishes and fears of the candidate. Some managers, by accident as much as by design, have so led candidates to feel they are going to get the job that permission is given to go to their companies, even though in the event they don’t get it. The repercussions of this are obviously potentially so serious that this danger must be formally guarded against. There is, however, no good reason to wait until the very end of the selection process to start discussing with referees from former companies. While early contact can seem to involve more work, it can often save a great deal by a rapid elimination.

Look for more general evidence of character traits, of possible adjustment to big cultural differences between companies.

References from several companies help to establish useful patterns but there are clearly practical limitations to how many one should approach. While the immediate superior of the candidate is normally the most useful to approach, it is usually wise to get more than one referee from the same company to get a safer assessment. Because we no longer look for clergymen and bank managers as referees, it would be a mistake not to look for referees from a wider social field. References are useful for all candidates, but clearly there are very great differences in the scope and variety of them according to levels and importance. Where several face-to-face meetings can be necessary for some jobs, a few telephone calls suffice for others. There are few jobs for which a carefully considered telephone call is not necessary.

How?

There are two key considerations here. We all make careful preparation for interviews, bearing in mind the relatively poor track record of success they have. Preparation for taking up references is just as necessary. Something should be known about the referee’s organisation and his/her place in it. A clear idea of the areas to explore should be set out with an approach formulated to reaching them. Notes taken earlier of the candidate’s own analysis and interpretation of their successes and failures can be checked against those of the referees.

The second key consideration is that of the skills needed for making the most of the reference interview (and here it can be pleaded that training for selection ought more often to include role playing for reference checking). The reference checker is confronted with the fact that a chore is to be demanded of another probably busy executive, whether in a face-to-face or telephone situation.

The temptation to promise brevity is great but could be ill advised where there is much ground to be covered. However, a business-like approach and a sharp focus made possible by the careful preparation, together with the required interpersonal skills make good progress possible. Establishing basic facts is easy and gives time to gain rapport. Reaching an understanding on the relevance of the job the referee is to speak about to the one to be offered is more difficult. It is usually better to explain the analysis of the offered job very clearly before beginning to probe the other one.

It is after this stage has been reached that we are confronted by a very real difficulty, and one that has made many sceptical of the value of references. When we attempt to reach a judgement on the relative success or failure, or strengths and weaknesses of the candidate, we cannot expect too much direct help from all referees.

1. They may be all too aware of legal pitfalls if they condemn anyone.
2. They may be too kind to someone they feel for and feel they owe us nothing.
3. They may even try and sell us people they would be only too glad to be rid of without messy dismissals.

It is here that great skill is required to tease out the likely truth of the situation. Sometimes there is suspicion, gained from all the evidence that there is some quite serious failing of the candidate but that the referee is not volunteering anything about it and seems likely to deny or evade the truth.
In these cases it is often useful to tell the referee that you have decided that the candidate has definitely got this failing and you will be acting on this decision unless the referee specifically rejects the truth of it.

Very often the referee will then, usually with relief, say that he did not want to say this, but since you have found this out he will not deny it.

It is always useful to ask a very general question before finishing an interview, no matter how careful a preparation has been made:

“Is there anything else which you can tell me which has a bearing on the suitability of X for this job?”

Some companies would not reveal a pertinent matter as long as they were not asked, and if there is something serious which has not been covered in the discussion, this question puts what, after all, can be a very real onus back on them.

Too much work?

Even from the few hints and comments in this piece, it may well be thought that too much work is being suggested for this one part of the selection process.

Naturally we must discriminate between jobs in terms of level and importance. But let us not forget these facts. The cost of recruitment and selection failures is still high, interviewing is a not very reliable tool and testing still has severe limitations. Why should we not then take much more seriously than we often do, the potentially rich source of evidence from references? The well-known difficulties of doing this have long made reference taking a necessary chore rather than a vital, well-organised part of an integrated selection process. It is time for some positive steps forward.

When a prospective employer requests a written reference (usually with the approval of the employee) it makes the need for a strictly factual response rather than an opinionated one. This in turn suggests the need, especially for important jobs, for a reference interview. Whilst such an interview is necessarily ‘verbal’ it is much more than that - even over the telephone - since much can be presumed noting vocal inflections, hesitation, pauses or even what is left unsaid. Undoubtedly, the best reference is one obtained in a face-to-face meeting with the referee!

The Data Protection Act 1998 - Reference Taking.

Recent revisions in the law has introduced many complexities in respect of reference points. Employers who hesitate to bestow a reference on a former member of their staff have been warned. They may be taken to court and mulcted of heavy damages. A woman has just been awarded £300,000 against an employer who, she declared, had discriminated against her by refusing her a reference. True, the circumstances were unusual. After having a baby and leaving the company, she settled a sex discrimination complaint out of court. Thereafter the company, declined to give her a reference. This, she successfully claimed, “crucified” her career because other employers refused to interview her.

So the written reference now joins the band of human rights! Will that affect its reliability? We think that it probably will. If employers can be punished for declining to give a reference, they can probably be sued for giving a bad reference sic: “This man is reliable, except he drinks too much.” So, not only does the reference become compulsory, it almost presumably has to be couched in terms that do not “crucify” anybody’s career. In other words, regardless of the individual’s character or performance, it must be favourable. Such references will not be worth much. As someone once implied, a verbal reference is not worth the paper it is written on, although there are many legal examples of the enforcement of verbal contracts!

Alistair Smith, who specialises in Employment Law, a Solicitor with JACKSONS, states:

‘Employees have a right of access to data under section 7 of the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA). Schedule 7, however, of the DPA sets out a number of exceptions. The effect is that employees are not entitled to have access to a reference given, or to be given, in confidence by their employer if the reference is given for the purposes of employment (whether present or prospective) of the employee. They can, however, apply to the new employer, or potential employer, for a copy of the reference. Generally, the reference should only be disclosed if the employer has the consent of the third party (normally the former employer giving the reference) or if it is not possible to identify the source of the reference when it is disclosed (highly unlikely). It may be reasonable in all the circumstances to dispense with the consent, although, again this is highly unlikely.’

The function of executive search is explicitly a reference taking exercise and therefore problems associated with reference taking do not normally arise.

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