The Complete Guide to Reference Checks That Actually Work

Reference checks catch problems that interviews miss. They reveal patterns of behavior that a candidate can hide in a few hours of interviews but cannot hide from people who worked with them daily for years. Yet most startups skip them or treat them as a formality.

This is a mistake. A thorough reference check takes 20-30 minutes per call and can save you from a hire that costs $200K or more to unwind.

Who to Talk To

Do not just call the three references the candidate provides. Those are pre-selected advocates. You need to also find backdoor references, people in your network who have worked with this person but were not provided as references. LinkedIn makes this easy. Search for connections in common and reach out.

For senior hires, talk to former direct managers (most important), peers and collaborators, and direct reports. The way someone treats people who report to them reveals more about their character than how they treat their boss.

Questions That Reveal the Truth

The best reference check questions are specific and behavioral. Here are the ones that consistently produce the most useful signal.

• What was their single biggest contribution to the team?
• If you could change one thing about working with them, what would it be?
• Would you hire them again? In what role? (The pause before the answer matters more than the answer.)
• How did they handle a situation where they disagreed with a decision?
• What type of environment do they thrive in? What type would be a poor fit?
• On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate them compared to others in the same role?

Red Flags to Listen For

Hesitation when asked whether they would hire this person again. Focus on effort rather than results. Qualified praise with lots of caveats. Inability to give specific examples of accomplishments. These are signals that the reference is trying to be polite without being dishonest.

The Bottom Line

Do three to four references for every senior hire. The 30 minutes per call can save you months of pain and hundreds of thousands of dollars.