Now, you’ve successfully interviewed your candidate — we’ll call her Lisa — and you think she’s the right person to fill the position. In fact, you can’t wait for her to get on board and get started ASAP.
Pause. Take a deep breath and pace yourself.
Before you pull the trigger and make a job offer to Lisa, you need actual 360-degree data to prove that what she said in the interview was actually true. And this is when backchanneling comes into play.
Read this guide, and you’ll learn:
- Why it’s essential to run a reference check in the first place;
- What’s the best way to ask the candidate for references;
- What questions you need to ask specifically to get the most honest answers from the reference;
- How to interpret the candidate’s minor negativities as confirmed by the reference.
Why Conduct Background Checks?
Because making bad hiring decisions is expensive. Consider this. According to Gallup’s report on the state of the US workforce, loses in productivity associated with a bad hire result in up to $550 billion a year. Worse, it takes 52 days to replace an existing employee with an average cost per hire being $4,129.
There’re also other major reasons for backchanneling candidates, as the 2018 HR.com/NABS chart below shall demonstrate.
Now, a seven-figure investment in the wrong person is a severe threat for any business regardless of its size. That’s why you want to mitigate the threat and max out your chances of hiring the right person. Read on, and you will learn how to kill it in your reference game.
What’s the Best Way to Ask the Candidate for References
Be upfront about it. While running a series of interviews, tell Lisa — our perfect candidate running for a position in your company — you want to ask the people that she worked with about her. The best answer to that? Awesome. You can talk to everybody.
Still, most people might clam up. After all, there’re always 2 sides to every story, which, of course, there are. Now, your goal is to explain to Lisa that the idea behind backchanneling her is not to dig for dirt. All you want is to understand if Lisa is a good cultural fit and if she has the skills and aptitude necessary to excel in the role.
OK, now the question is: do you want Lisa to hand pick references for you? You might want to, but then you’ll have to ask Lisa why she decided on these exact people, which might form a source of unnecessary discussion.
The best way is to reach out to at least 5 references — people who reported to Lisa, whom Lisa reported to, and (2x) peers. So, be transparent about your backchanneling intentions, explain to the candidate why you want to run a reference check on them and get the right mix of people to talk to.
Questions to Ask to Elicit the Most Honest Answers
At this point, you’ve already done your research and found 5 people to speak with. So far so good, right?
The next step is to make those reference calls that will either prove or disprove that Lisa is the ideal candidate for the role. Now, the problem is that often, hiring managers ask softball questions.
That’s not how YOU are going to do it. Your goal is to go in with a solid assumption that Lisa is the perfect candidate and you just want to make sure there’s no skeleton in the closet, which you might’ve missed during the interview.
Here are the questions you want to ask the references:
How was [Lisa] perceived by others? In essence, that’s just a better way of asking What did you make of Lisa. Because it gives the green light to reference to talk more honestly about the candidate making it much easier for you to audit their response.
Would you be more or less excited if you had to work with [Lisa] again? This one puts the person in the hiring position, which can make their response potentially more honest.
If you were me, is there anything you’d like me to know about [Lisa]? This question is good to ask because it gives a license to the person to share whatever it is that they want to share. Ideally, you want to ask this question in the middle of the discussion, as it can unlock other conversations.
If I had to reassure myself that [Lisa] is the best/worst candidate to hire, who do you think I’d better speak with? By asking this question, you’ll be able to build your reference set (up to 5 people) and get a 360-degree picture of the person.
Everyone Has Something They Wish They Could Change
Now, let’s assume that Lisa’s references proved that she’s a stellar team player everyone would die to work with, blah, blah, blah… You expected nothing less.
Still, we all have areas for improvement. And sometimes when backchanneling candidates, you’ll hear people say, While Lisa is good [as an individual contributor], I feel like in [team environments], she doesn’t do all that well.
Now, does that mean that you should decide against hiring Lisa? Obviously not — especially if things the references say sound minor — unless something major, a previously undetected recruitment mistake, comes up.
Be aware that everyone has something they wish they could change. As a recruiter, your goal is to understand the range of the good and the bad — Piotrek Sosnowski, VP & Co-founder at Zety.
Final Words
Ultimately, a thorough background check can help you assemble great teams that will not only gel well but who will also change the trajectory of your company.
The only thing is that you need to get your rhythm with it:
★ Be upfront about backchanneling and reach out to (5x) different people;
★ Ask the right questions that will give references a license to be honest with you;
★ Be aware that everyone has negatives.
Guest Author Max Woolf is a writer. He’s passionate about helping people land their dream jobs through the expert career industry coverage. In his spare time, Max enjoys biking and traveling to European countries. You can hit him up on LinkedIn or Twitter.
