10 Questions to Ask When Conducting a Reference Check

April 4, 2022 by

An efficient process is essential to successful recruiting in today’s job market. Any part of your process that creates delays chips away at your ability to compete for top talent.

Reference checking is one area where a lot of insurance organizations need to improve. Start with these three questions to determine if references are a valuable hiring resource or a cog in the wheel:

  • Do references lead to new information that you didn’t previously have about the candidate?
  • What is the average time it takes you to complete reference checks? Has that time helped or hurt your ability to bring the hire to completion?
  • Do you use reference information for any reason other than deciding to make a hire, say to increase new employee onboarding, training, management or retention success?

If you believe reference checks are very important, then you want to extract maximum value from the process. This starts with asking the right questions.

When Capstone is asked to conduct reference checks for a client, here are the 10 questions we use to gain valuable insight into the person and their potential.

Culture Questions

Your goal is to find out what the candidate is like on a day in, day out basis.

Professional Development Questions

Start by sharing information about the job to get the reference’s opinion on the candidate’s potential success.

Endorsement Questions

You need to know if this person’s first-hand insight makes for a valuable recommendation.