6 Essential Questions to Ask Your Job Candidate's References

By Christine Ascher on May 7, 2018

When you’re evaluating candidates for a position within your company, one great way to get to know them better and to get a more concrete idea of what it would be like to work with them is through their references. References are a great source of information when it comes to determining whether or not a candidate is right for your company—provided you know the right questions to ask. To ensure that you’re getting the most out of your conversation with your job candidate’s references, make sure you’re asking them the following questions.

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1. How Do You Know the Candidate?

First and foremost, you should establish the relationship between the candidate and their reference by asking how they knew each other. In addition to learning about the connection between your candidate and their reference, this can also help you verify some essential information, such as where your candidate used to work, their former position, and their responsibilities in that position. In this way, a reference can act as a screening tool to ensure that you have all of the correct information concerning your candidate’s former work experience.

2. How Long Did You Work with the Candidate?

Asking how long your job candidate’s reference has known them can help give you a better idea of how much weight to put on their opinions, and of their overall reliability as a reference. In general, the longer a reference has known a candidate, the better their ability to assess them in terms of their future potential. While you certainly should not disregard the opinions of a boss or coworker who only worked with the candidate for a short amount of time, it’s a good idea to take the duration of their relationship into account.

3. What are Their Overall Strengths and Weaknesses?

While you may be able to get an idea of your job candidate’s strengths and weaknesses through interviews, it’s always a good idea to get a more objective opinion of these qualities. Asking a former employer or coworker what your job candidate is good at and what they may need to work on can give you a great idea of whether or not they’re capable of fulfilling the job qualifications that you’re looking for and if they have the potential to excel at your company. By hearing a former employer or coworker’s opinion concerning your job candidate’s strengths, you’ll also be able to get a better idea of what they can add to your company.

4. What Was Your Experience Working with the Candidate?

Asking your candidate’s references about their overall experience working with the candidate will give you a great overview of the potential benefits and drawbacks of hiring that person. By getting an outside opinion concerning what it was like to work with the candidate in the past, you can get a much better idea of what to expect should you bring them into your company. For instance, if the reference had a good experience working with the candidate and attests to their reliability and consistency, you’ll know that the candidate will probably become someone who you can count on in your company. If, on the other hand, the reference had difficulty managing the candidate or found them unreliable, you might have similar issues should you choose to hire the candidate.

5. Describe the Candidate’s Work Performance

One of the most important questions that you can ask your job candidate’s references is, of course, how well they did in their previous position. While the position that you’re hiring for and the one your candidate has occupied in the past may vary in terms of qualifications, you can still get a good idea of whether or not the candidate has a good work ethic in general. Asking about your candidate’s performance in an old job can give you an idea of their reliability, time management skills, and their ability to grow over time, all of which will certainly come in handy when making a hiring decision. Hearing from a former employer about a candidate’s work ethic will also provide you with a more accurate assessment than the candidate could offer themselves.            

6. Why Did They Leave the Job?

This is a great question to ask your job candidate’s references, as it can help you verify your candidate’s long-term goals, identify if they’ve had issues fitting into a work environment in the past, and may give you a better idea of how long you can expect the candidate to stay with your company. If, for instance, the references reveal that your candidate has a habit of getting bored and leaving positions after a couple of years, they may repeat the pattern when working for you. Above all, it’s important to find out if your job candidate left their former positions on good terms and with good reason, as this will help ensure that they are reliable and will stay in a position with your company for a reasonable amount of time.

Choosing between job candidates for a position is almost always difficult, but using references to evaluate their potential is a great way to make the process easier. By hearing from someone who knows the candidate well, you’ll get a much better idea of their working style, their strengths, and whether or not they’ll be a good fit for your company.

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