Reference Checks:How to Do Them Properly, Past the List

To do reference checks properly, ask specific questions, ask about what they owned and what you would change, and speak to at least one person who is not on their list. The list gives you a curated account. Your own network gives you an accurate one.

How to do reference checks properly when you are the only judge

Most solo operators skip this step. Or they do it in ten minutes, on the phone, asking "would you recommend them?" and hearing "yes, lovely person."

Of course they said yes. The candidate picked them.

That call tells you nothing. It's a formality, and you ran it like one. Yet a reference conversation is one of the highest-yield things you can do before you commit to someone. It costs you an hour. It is where a lot of avoidable mistakes would have been caught.

You have a bigger reason to do it than a company with a hiring team. You are the only judgment in the room. Nobody else will spot what you missed. And this person will be a big share of everything your business feels like for the next year.

So treat the call like the work sample it is. It's evidence. Go and get some.

Why a polite call is worthless

General questions get general answers. "How was she to work with?" invites a pleasant sentence. Nobody lies, nobody informs, and you hang up feeling reassured, which is the worst outcome.

Two things are working against you.

First, the candidate chose the referee. You are hearing from the person most likely to say something kind.

Second, you want it to be fine. You are tired, the gap is real, and the conversations went well. Your ear will take every warm word as confirmation and let every hesitation slide past. The pause before an answer is where the information lives, and you are not listening for it.

Specific questions fix both. A person can't answer "what did he actually own?" with a compliment. They have to describe something real. And describing something real is where the truth leaks out.

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The questions that get real answers

Here is the swap for reference checks. Stop asking the left column. Start asking the right one.

Look at the third row. "Would you work with them again" is easy. "And on what?" is the question that does the damage, in a good way. A referee who says "yes, on anything" is telling you something. A referee who says "yes, on the research side" is telling you something else.

Then shut up. Silence is a tool. Ask, wait, and let them fill the gap. Most people can't bear a pause, and what they say into it is rarely rehearsed.

Write it down while they talk

Take notes during the call. Not after.

Memory reshapes itself towards whoever you liked. If you enjoyed the candidate, the afternoon's recollection will be warmer than the actual words were. The paper doesn't flatter anyone.

Score what you hear against the role you defined, not against your overall impression. If you wrote down what the person has to produce in the first stretch of the job, the question for every referee is simple: does this account suggest they could produce that? The ninety-day outcome is what you measure against, and without it you are measuring against a feeling.

Same questions for every candidate, too. If you only ask the sharp ones of the person you doubt, you've already decided, and the call is theatre.

Go beyond the list

This is the part that separates a real check from a courtesy.

The people on the list are the people the candidate wants you to hear. Fine. Hear them. Then find someone who isn't on it.

You are one or two connections from almost anyone in your field. Ask around. A former colleague, someone in the same community, a person who sold to the same clients. Have a proper conversation, not a quiz. Tell them what you're doing and ask what they know.

Is that distrust? No. You're not hunting for a scandal. You're after the difference between a curated account and an accurate one, and most of the time the accurate one will still be positive. But when it isn't, you'll be very glad you asked.

A fair thing to do: tell the candidate you'll be speaking to people beyond the list. Say it plainly and early. Someone with nothing to worry about shrugs. Their reaction is information too.

What to do when something comes up twice

One odd remark is noise. The same remark from two people is a pattern.

Say the first referee mentions that the candidate was brilliant but needed a lot of direction. Say the second, unprompted, tells you the same thing in different words. You now have a finding, not a hunch.

The mistake is to explain it away. "That was a different environment." "They were new then." Maybe. Maybe not. Follow it up. Go back to the candidate and ask about it directly, without accusation, and listen to how they describe it. Someone self-aware says "yes, that's fair, here's what I've changed." Someone who bristles has shown you the same thing a third time.

If something came up twice and you can't say why it wouldn't matter in your business, treat it as a no until you can.

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Be honest about what you're looking for

You're not trying to find a perfect person. There isn't one. Every referee will have a reservation if you ask well enough, which is the point of asking well.

The real question is whether the reservation matters for this role. Someone who needs a lot of direction is a disaster if you're about to disappear for a month and fine if you have the hours to give. Someone who is rough on the detail is a problem for a bookkeeper and irrelevant for a researcher.

That's why the role has to be written before the call. A reservation only means something against a definition.

And hold the rule you set earlier: ambiguity means no. If the references leave you unsure, you are unsure. You'll be unsure for a year. The cost of one more conversation is far lower than the cost of unwinding a hire. A reference check is not a hurdle for the candidate. It's one of your best tools for making the decision a little less of a guess.

Where this fits in a fast process

None of this has to be slow. Two or three calls, an hour each at most, can happen inside a few days. Book them the moment you have a front-runner, not after you've made up your mind.

If you're wondering how it sits next to everything else, the references are the verification step in a short process that also includes a paid work sample. The work sample shows you what they do. The references show you what they did before, as told by someone else. Together they cover most of what a conversation never will. And keeping the whole thing quick matters more than you'd think, which is the subject of how to hire fast.

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A short reference checks checklist before you say yes

• Every reference was asked specific questions, not general ones.
• You asked "would you work with them again, and on what."
• You spoke to at least one person who was not on the list.
• Your notes were written during the calls.
• Anything that came up twice has been followed up, not explained away.

Tick all five and you've done more than most employers ever do. Miss one and you know exactly where the risk is.

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Frequently asked questions

Is it rude to contact people the candidate did not list?

Not if you're straightforward about it. Say early that you'll speak to people beyond the list, and handle what you hear with discretion. You're not trying to catch anyone out. You're trying to hear an accurate account instead of a curated one.

What if the candidate has no references from a previous employer?

Then use other evidence: clients they served, people they collaborated with, the work sample, anything they've built that you can look at. The questions stay the same. You want to know what they owned, what went wrong and who else saw them work.

What if a reference says something negative?

Ask for the detail, then test it against the role. A reservation that has nothing to do with the job is information, not a verdict. One that touches the work you need done is serious, especially if it comes up from a second person.

How many reference checks are enough?

Enough to hear the same picture from more than one angle. Two or three conversations, including one from outside the provided list, will tell you far more than a long stack of polite ones.

Do the reference checks yourself, and do them past the list.

The full method, with the checklists, is in The First Ten Hires Playbook, a free 22-page playbook.