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References

Nardia

I was at an event recently where it was stated that references are as useful in terms of reliability as using handwriting analysis. I notice on the CIPD website that references are an important part of recruitment - how is this right if the evidence says that they have unreliable and have a weak evidence base?

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  • Welcome to the communities Nardia.

    I guess the person stated this because a huge number of companies only collect 'tombstone', references which have so little information on them - job, start date & end date. These references are pretty worthless in my view.

    'Proper' references, as the CIPD state are pretty important.
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  • Welcome to the communities Nardia.

    I guess the person stated this because a huge number of companies only collect 'tombstone', references which have so little information on them - job, start date & end date. These references are pretty worthless in my view.

    'Proper' references, as the CIPD state are pretty important.
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  • in reply to David Perry
    As David has said, it depends entirely on what you request as in terms of references and what the previous employer is prepared to provide. Legally, references must always be factual - this can be negative too.

    If you ask for a full character reference, that can be quite telling. Unless you seriously doubt a candidate's CV I never quite understand clarifying start/end dates etc.

    One of the most useful questions I find is during interview clarifying with candidates that they would be happy for the employer to contact references and if there is anything that they might say that is less than positive about the candidate - you usually find out anything important that way!