How Automated Reference Checking Improves the Quality of Your Hires

“Technology is best when it brings people together.”

- Matt Mullenweg, American entrepreneur

Automated Reference Checking: A report by Glassdoor that was issued in June of 2015, pointed to an alarming trend. In places like the US and Canada, the average time to hire a new employee was averaging around 22 days! Now, if you think things are any better outside of the west, you would be mistaken. On average, in countries like Germany, France and the U.K. the time took almost 4 to 9 days more than that of Canada or the US. This was way back then and to be honest, that trend has largely remained true and strong to this day. Nowadays, most companies have to wait 30 days or so, almost one whole month till they can onboard the candidate!

Trivialities like the contract termination period, the notice period and even the interview and screening process all add up. Eventually, you are left with a long and winding process that you are not even sure is worth all that time and effort on your part. More often than not you might get an employee with a marginal qualification for the job, or if they are qualified, some aspect of their past might prevent them from performing the role as needed. Maybe they aren’t the best team player or have a criminal history, whatever the case, something always gets overlooked. That is why in this article we will be talking about the benefits that automated reference checking can bring to the table. We will also talk about how it can help improve the quality of your hires!

Automated reference checking gives your more actionable data that you can use to evaluate new hires. This means better quality!

Table of Contents

Automated Reference Checking Makes for a Streamlined Process

Reference checking is by far, one of the most time consuming and tedious processes of recruitment. Now, if we look at traditional recruitment, in most cases, only a small portion of the references who are contacted give you all the information you are looking for. Most are simply too busy or just not willing to go through with answering the questions for fear of legal repercussions.

This leaves us with an inefficient system. Hence, we bring you the beauty of automated reference checking! As a concept, it works to streamline the entire data collection process. HR and hiring managers can quickly collect the information with little to no hassle on their part.

The fact that automated reference checking gives you more complete information, means that you have the data to make better decisions about your hires.

Get More Actionable Data with Automated Reference Checking

Throughout the recruitment process, you might have to go back and forth between several references just for a single candidate. In this process, you would have likely encountered references who waste time on the phone with vague platitudes, small talk or just simply give you the run-around. The automated reference checking process eliminates all that by allowing you to collect consistent information that specifically highlights areas of strength or weakness.

"We're changing the world with technology."

- Bill Gates, Microsoft Co-Founder

Why Does Automated Reference Checking Work Better?

As we mentioned before, when you have a phone call with references or even an email for that matter, the number of people willing to give you the details you want is low. All you end up with is a stack of vague, half-answers that form the basis for a somewhat questionable hire.

Now, when you consider automated reference checks, people are more likely to answer surveys fully. For one, it carries an air of anonymity to it and there is no room to beat around the bush.

This gives hiring managers a better look at the candidate. Once that data is collected, you will be able to view it in a compact manner that shows you who has what skills and or weaknesses.

Data acquired quickly with better quality makes for faster hires that don’t run the risk of feeding into your turnover stats at the end of the fiscal year. Instead of focusing on your intuition, you can rely on hard facts to support your hiring choices.

Using a standard automated reference checking process ensures that there is no room for human bias.

Automate to Eliminate Bias

If someone’s references are good, sometimes the truth is they can be too good to be true. You have to remember that at the end of the day, those are people who had a working relationship with your candidate in the past. This means they can buff the candidate’s resume more than necessary or even be protective of them to a degree.

By using the standardized format of automated reference checking, you eliminate that bias. The whole process is far less personal, so references are more likely, to be honest with you. This means you can select candidates on their merit and skill, rather than enthusiastic fluff.