Let’s face it, a resume, a piece of paper written by an applicant about their own skills and qualifications, only tells you a very small part of the story. When it comes to finding the right candidates, reference checks are your best channel to uncover critical insights about a candidate’s skills, personality and cultural fit.
I’ve talked before about how to make the most of references, but today I want to discuss another important area – making sure they are genuine.
Once, when references were all done by phone, you had no guarantees that the person on the phone was who they claimed to be. The ease of this fraud was highlighted well in a popular radio prank, where someone was asked (and obliged!) to provide a reference for a complete stranger.
With today’s technologies, life is much easier for recruiters and HR in many areas, but, of course, technology can open up new channels for fraudulent activity. Unwittingly hiring an unqualified or inexperienced candidate can have disastrous consequences for businesses in every industry, and even more so for those where the stakes are high, such as healthcare.
It’s something we take very seriously at Referoo, and today, I want to share three key ways you can be sure your references are genuine.
When your applicant completes their referee details quickly and easily via Referoo, we can see their IP address. Then, when the referee completes the reference, we can also see their IP address and match it against the applicant’s. Where they are one and the same, this is immediately flagged for you as the recruiter or employer.
Of course, there are genuine reasons your applicant and their referee are completing the process from the same location; most commonly that they currently work together. But there are many disingenuous ones too – the referee is a friend, spouse or housemate, for example, so it’s worth knowing about and investigating.
If there is a genuine reason, your candidate will be able to explain it easily, and you can move forward. However, in many cases, Referoo’s IP matching technology has uncovered false references for our clients and potentially saved them from making a costly mistake.
Of course, IP matching is just the start. You also need to know that this is the right person to be providing the reference. With Referoo, your referee has the opportunity to link to their LinkedIn profile on the reference. This helps to verify the referee’s professional background and their experience with the candidate. (As an added bonus, it’s also a great way to easily review the referee to see if you might be interested in them as a recruitment client or future candidate. Referoo has recently released a Business Development Module to help you make the most of these opportunities, more here.)
While a LinkedIn profile offers some level of comfort about the referee’s identity, we know it doesn’t provide certainty. Through a collaboration with DigitalID™ from Australia Post, Referoo has taken things to a whole new level.
Using Referoo with Digital ID™ means that you can now do real-time background checks on your referees to guarantee that the reference is genuine.
With this integration, you can check a variety of Australian identity documents, asking referees to verify their information and linking this to a candidate report in Referoo.
You might ask whether this level of protection is really necessary, but do you really want someone in your business, privy to your data and in front of your clients who may not have the skills to do the job? Or maybe even worse, someone who would lie to you from the outset? It could prove to be a costly exercise for your business, even beyond the extensive costs associated with rehiring the right person.
If you want to save time, make the most of your references and be sure the reference is genuine, start your free full-service 14-day trial with Referoo , or get in touch to discuss your specific needs.