Social Media as a Marketing Tool

Asking candidates for references and then checking them allows you to filter out fraudulent candidates and make sure they're a good fit for your company. Unfortunately, manually checking references takes quite a bit of time, and you may find that some references don't answer their phones at all.

Due to the hassle involved with manually checking references, companies are increasingly turning towards online reference checking platforms that makes the process of checking references much more convenient. These platforms allow candidates to provide you with the email addresses of their references, which allows you to send them a survey they can fill out in order to describe the candidate's strengths and weaknesses. The results of the surveys are sent to the managers making the hiring decision for the candidate. To learn three reasons why this makes it easier to find the perfect candidate for your job openings, read on.

1. Saves a Significant Amount of Time

When you're calling or emailing references directly in order to ask about a candidate, it can take days before you're able to get into contact with them. Repeatedly emailing references or leaving voicemails on their phones until you're able to get in touch with them isn't the most useful way to spend time during the workday. That time could be spent searching for more candidates for open positions or developing training and retention strategies for your current workforce.

Moving to an automated reference checking platform frees up a considerable amount of time since a candidate's references are able to complete surveys on their own time and send them to your company when they're ready — there's no need to repeatedly try to get in touch with them in order to talk to them about the candidate you're considering. This makes human resources' workflow more efficient and makes the department perform more effectively.

2. Allows You to Check References Earlier in the Hiring Process

Since it's easier for a candidate's references to respond to your requests for information, you're able to check a candidate's references much earlier in the hiring process. Companies who manually check references commonly leave this task until the final round of candidate interviews, since the process of manually checking them takes so long. Unfortunately, this can lead to a very slow hiring process — negative references during the final round of interviews will require you to start the entire interview process over again with new candidates.

This also sometimes forces companies to make bad hiring decisions when they receive negative references about a final candidate and choose to hire them instead of re-doing the entire process. An automated reference checking platform allows you to quickly check references and filter out unqualified candidates before they make it further into the interview process, which improves the quality of the candidates in the final round.

3. Provides More Reliable Information About Candidates

Finally, an automated reference checking platform typically provides more useful information about a candidate compared to calling references or emailing them directly. You can choose to anonymize the surveys you receive from references, which isn't an option when you're contacting them directly. Anonymous surveys allow references to feel more comfortable about providing negative references for a candidate. Direct surveys can make references worry about potential liability for providing negative information about a candidate, which makes them less reliable.

Overall, automated reference checking platforms make it much easier and quicker to screen out poor candidates early in the hiring process. The information is typically higher-quality compared to directly interviewing references, and response times are better than calling or emailing references directly. If you still spend a large portion of your day interviewing references on your own, consider switching to an automated reference checking platform to make your workflow easier and improve the quality of candidates you hire.

For more information on an automated reference checking system, contact a company near you.