You are poorly informed.
> It's impractical to check references before the offer stage,
There's a useful distinction here between a verbal, paperwork-pending sort of offer and a written offer, although seriously, contacting references is not that big a deal. You're talking about a few phone calls. An applicant has every right to assume you've done all the relevant work before extending a written offer, unless you inform them otherwise.
> since the majority of candidates will not want their existing employer to be contacted for a reference until they have accepted the offer.
The majority of candidates are smart enough not to use individuals at their existing employer as references without talking to them about it first. It would be extraordinary for a company to contact someone at the current employer of a potential hire willy-nilly, without permission, as it could put them in an actionable position. Everyone understands the issues involved.
Perhaps you're confusing a reference check with a date of employment check. No HR department is going to hold it against an employee if someone calls them asking to verify that employee's date of employment. It's a procedure that's used for a lot of things, not just hiring.
I think it's maybe rather that these processes and expectations can be quite different in different places, and naturally my views are based on my own experiences rather than my position as a single infallible global oracle :)
It certainly seems like cultural expectations of what constitutes an "offer" or a "reference" in the US is somewhat different from what I understand in the UK.
That's even more of an issue, no? You accept the offer but don't yet resign (as others have said one should) until final confirmation, they tell your employer that you are joining, then rescind the offer, and now what?
But for some reason this extremely obvious (and universally applied) fix the the problem never occurred to to hiring folks at Stripe. Or it did occur to them, but they cynically chose against it.
To make things, you know, "faster".
Yes, you should be careful about which references you use, and if you're going to use current colleagues/managers, to let them know you're searching ahead of time (normally you should ask before selecting someone anyhow--so it shouldn't be a surprise).
It is definitely not universal practice to offer candidates, as Stripe did, "contingent" job offers while presenting them as "final" offers.
The expectations around this could, of course, vary from region to region.
I think we can safely assume the candidates interviewed for the article were reasonably intelligent, and would not have missed language in the offer letter indicating that it was "contingent" and subject to due diligence still in progress.
You work in tech in the Bay Area and this is your expectation? It's certainly not mine - I don't expect them to call anyone at my current employer and would be annoyed if they did.
I absolutely do not – I work in tech in the UK. That's why I added the proviso that expectations might vary regionally.
However, if I were to explicitly provide a contact at my current employer as a reference (which seems to be broadly standard practice in this country) then I'd expect them to be contacted.
Which was very frustrating, as I needed to check with my references before sending, and often they were never contacted.