How Not to Fuck Up a Perfectly Good Chance to Hire Someone | Hacker News Reader

How Not to Fuck Up a Perfectly Good Chance to Hire Someone

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Very good post, though I disagree on reference checks. I've seen hiring mistakes where a good reference check would have caught issues.

Thanks. I appreciate the discourse. I'd actually love to hear more about what you would have discovered with the a reference check. Would you mind sharing?

Let's start that I agree with your base position: Asking someone they have prepped should not get you much information. However, if you can even get good information 10% of the time, it's worth doing. (Most interview techniques are worthless, as you have alluded)

What instances could I have turned up with a reference check?

1 - We had a salesman who wouldn't pick up the phone. We could have gotten some clues on if his performance to quota what the resource claimed. During the sales interview it's ok to ask for precise performance against quotas, and it's fair game to confirm with references.

2 - We had an engineer with extreme personality conflicts, who actively subverted his coworkers. It was to a level that it would have turned up previously, and we may have been able to suss this out.

How would I have gone about this?

1 - Asking "Given the opportunity, would you hire this candidate again?" (Every once in a while you won't get an enthusiastic "Yes!" and this question won't get the reference in legal trouble.)

2 - Asking very specific questions about specific contributions that the candidate claimed.

3 - Going to a mutual friend during the reference check. (Note: You can't ethically do this if you are poaching someone who is not public about their job search)

Those are all fair. However, I think they are also unethical. If a "reference" contributes anything that gives you cause to pass on a hire they can be successfully sued for damages. As I understand it, this liability is the primary reason that most companies no longer let their employees act as references, and instead ask you to direct reference queries to the HR department. If I know that calling a reference and prodding for negative information may result in that person getting into legal trouble, I have a difficult time justifying that act.

There are questions that you can ask without getting them in legal trouble. Asking "Would you hire them again?" is a way to do this.

Also, the recipient of the call doesn't need to answer anything they don't want.

I think the bigger ethical issue is asking references who the candidate hasn't prepped. (You can hurt them if they're interviewing in confidence)

This doesn't work in the case where the reference is the candidate's former superior and the superior is the kind of person you want to avoid dealing with. I can't have been the only person to deal with manipulative bosses who are sweet at first but turn on you when you assert yourself.

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