By Ross Campbell, Financial Services & Insurance Recruiter
Key 10 in my blog series, Hire Wisdom: The 12 Keys to Successful Hiring, is Perform Reference Checks. When I started writing this blog post, all I kept thinking was…
“How can I get people to care about reference checks?”
That’s because conducting reference checks have become one of the least meaningful parts of the hiring process. People have started to think of them as a final box to check, a task to “get out of the way” when the candidate has all but signed on the dotted line… but they’re wrong! Thinking of reference checks this way is a missed opportunity. Remember, a bad hire is costly, both in time and money – the cost of attrition is one to three times an employee’s salary!
A reference check is an invaluable opportunity to make a smarter, more informed decision about your next hire and to learn about their past performance and quirks beyond what they can tell you about themselves. Have I convinced you that you should care about reference checks yet? If so, read on for my preferred reference check questions and some major do’s and don’ts to keep in mind.
Remember, this is your chance to gather as much information as possible before you commit to a hire. Don’t miss your opportunity to make the most informed decision possible. With this formula, reference checks become more meaningful rather than just a mandatory box to check. Hire more wisely using this recipe for reference checking and get one step closer to Hire Wisdom.
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Check out the rest of the series, Hire Wisdom: The 12 Keys to Successful Hiring. Learn more about Toronto Financial Services & Insurance Recruiter Ross Campbell and connect with him on LinkedIn.
IQ PARTNERS is an Executive Search & Recruitment firm with offices in Toronto, Montreal & Vancouver. We help companies hire better, hire less & retain more. We have teams of specialist recruiters in Financial Services & Insurance, Marketing Communications & Media, Emerging Tech & Telecom, Consumer Goods & Retail, B2B & Industrial, Technology, Accounting & Finance, HR & Operations, Energy, Mining & Engineering, Life Sciences, and Construction, Property & Real Estate. IQ PARTNERS has its head office in Toronto and operates internationally via Aravati Global Search Network. Click here to view current job openings and to register with us.
Ross Campbell is a Partner and Practice Lead, Financial Services & Insurance with IQ PARTNERS. Celebrating over 10 years of management consulting experience in executive search, recruitment, and training in Canadian financial services and insurance companies, Ross thrives on the belief that business can be done significantly better by investing in the right people.