The Ordeal of Reference-Checking

Those who are experienced in the area of reference-checking will remember a time when they were naïve enough not to expect problems. After all, it should be a very simple procedure, right? Wrong. When faced with the painfully frustrating process of trying to confirm that a potential hire (PH) is as good as he or she may seem, there are many, many potential hurdles. Below are a few pitfalls to keep in mind next time you look for references. Remember, in these situations, it's better to laugh than to cry.

1. Does this person still exist?

Perhaps you've been provided with contact names, not reference letters. You can insist on the obvious: current address and telephone number for each. But is the person actually still at that number and address this week even if they were last week? Have you been given a cell phone number ("really, it's the best way to contact him") that is out of range, never answered, inaudible, etc? Even if the person is at the number and address in general, is she/he on vacation? One of our hospitals had a situation, where a PH provided the details of three references (at different facilities), and all of them were on leave or vacation for at least two weeks. And then there was my own personal experience, where the person handling my file had to leave town unexpectedly for a family emergency, the person replacing her was hit by a bus, and the person replacing him had a death in the family!

2. Where in the World is ...?

People are busy. What is the maximum number of messages you'd be willing/able to leave asking for a reference on the PH? Telephone-tag can go on for weeks. And what about the situation where Jane Doe was PH's direct supervisor throughout PH's employment, but, alas, Ms. Doe retired last month to enjoy a bohemian lifestyle and, if you're lucky, can be occasionally contacted via poor cell phone connection?

3. Hospital Policy

Fearing potential lawsuits by employees who receive bad references, some hospitals have instituted policies that make obtaining references a nightmare. The policies may be minor; for instance, a supervisor can provide a verbal but not a written reference or can provide a written reference, so long as it is not on letterhead. Or the policies may be edicts that allow confirmation of dates of employment and prohibit commentary of any kind. The more strict policies, of course, beg questions: How do they expect people to obtain jobs elsewhere (of course, maybe they don't – maybe it's their staff retention policy)? And how can they expect people applying to work at their facility to give them references, when they won't provide them themselves? Of course, there was one incident at one of our hospitals, when a PH said that their previous employer's policy forbade references, but when the hospital called the employer to plead for some comments, they were told that there was no such policy!

4. The Bad Reference

If someone verbally provides a bad reference, in a sense, this is good, because you can ask for clarification and decide how bad is bad. If the unexpected happens and something negative is supplied in a written reference, you have to chase up the information about how bad is bad – which brings you back to items 1 and 2.

5. Take With a Grain of Salt

Teachers have websites that they can visit to see if their students are plagiarizing essays. But what about employers checking for false or forged references? Sometimes the PH isn't particularly attentive and sends in obviously questionable references – such as the PH who sent one of our hospitals three references, by three different people, who just happened to have the same handwriting and the same misspelling of one specific word. But usually forgeries are discovered only by accident, so aside from their other duties, employers must be detectives.

6. Contradicting the PH's Resume or Application Details

Sometimes references are fine except that they entirely contradict the employment dates or title the PH has provided. Back to detective duty! Whose dates are correct? Is there some technicality like two different jobs within the same organization? And with hospitals merging and health systems being created and recreated, where exactly is the person working? You may receive a letter saying that the PH was an employee at Hospital X, but PH said she/he worked at Hospital Y. Are they the same thing? It might be an error, or it might be that the corporate name of Hospital Y is Hospital X, or Hospital Y is a division of Hospital X. Again – don the detective's hat.

7. The Unprofessional/Illiterate Reference

One of our hospitals was sent reference letters, which were undated and didn't mention the name of the employer or the title of the person writing the reference. We've also been told that some references (even some that are not missing dates) arrive handwritten on children's stationery or coffee-stained coil-notebook paper. Some references are full of misspelled words. Some can barely be read due to the handwriting. Others use inflated terminology in incorrect ways, such as the glowing reference that we heard about, which stated how wonderful a PH was, including how good it was that he was "not above reproach."

8. What Exactly do you Mean by That?

And now the most insidious category: the reference equivalent of the double entendre. These phrases may be innocent; they may be a way to disguise negative comments; or they may be a secret form of communication between HR and recruitment departments that I have never been formally initiated into. Consider these examples:

Phrase Does it mean ...? Or does it mean ...? A worker like Joe is hard to find. His work is so outstanding that there aren't many of his quality to be found. Joe is never at his post or never on the job. She is definitely a person to watch. She is a great worker with a great future. She can't be trusted to work on her own. I don't think that he could have done a better job for us if he tried. He always was an excellent worker, though it seemed effortless. He didn't try, and, if he did, he was so bad that his work would not have improved. He was always high in my opinion. The employer held him in high regard. He was constantly under the influence of drugs. I can't say enough good things about her or recommend her too highly. She is so wonderful that we haven't the words to praise her. She is so terrible, we can't think of anything good to say about her and do not recommend her highly. You will be very fortunate to get him to work for you. He's great, and you'll be glad that you hired him. You'll be lucky if you can get him off his butt to do his job.

So, dear colleagues: good hunting – and good luck!

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