tinyhumansai Reference Check
Check specific claims. A general question about somebody produces a general answer, and general answers about people are close to worthless.
When to use
- An offer is close and a must-have rests on something only a former colleague could confirm.
- A scorecard flagged a gap that a reference could actually close.
Steps
- Decide what you are checking before the call, from
candidates.gaps— one or two specific claims, named. - Ask about behaviour in situations, not about qualities. "What did they do when the migration failed" rather than "are they resilient".
- Ask what the reference actually saw. Second-hand impressions get repeated with the confidence of first-hand ones.
- Do not ask anything you could not ask the candidate, and nothing touching a protected characteristic. This is a legal boundary as well as an ethical one.
- Record what was said on the candidate row as evidence, in the reference's words. Not your impression of the tone.
- Weigh it as one input. A reference contradicting a strong interview signal is a reason to probe further, not to reverse a decision on its own.
Output
Evidence recorded against the specific gaps it was meant to close. If the check did not close them, say so — an inconclusive reference is a result, and the hiring decision is the operator's either way.