Reference checks often get treated as a formality. Offer's half written, the candidate's lovely, you call two people they picked, and both say "great team player, very hardworking." Ten minutes each. You tick the box and send the offer.
Now picture hiring an account manager whose references were glowing. Both former managers, both warm, both quick. A few months in, she's quietly stopped updating some of her biggest accounts, and you find out when one of them churns. You call one of those references back, and the manager goes quiet and then says, "Yeah, that happened with us too, around the time of the reorg. I thought she'd have sorted it out."
He didn't lie. Nobody asked the question that would've got that answer.
References won't volunteer the bad month
Nobody wants to be the reason someone doesn't get a job. A former manager on the phone with a stranger is going to be generous, especially if the candidate picked them and might hear about the call. Ask "how was she to work with?" and you'll get a pleasant non-answer every time.
That's not a reason to skip references. It's a reason to stop asking questions that invite praise. The useful information is there. You have to ask about specific situations, and you have to make it safe for them to tell you.
Questions that actually get answers
The questions that work ask about a particular time, not a general trait. Here are some that work:
"Tell me about a stretch when things were going badly for the team. What did she do during it?" Everyone's had a bad quarter. This question assumes there was one and asks about behaviour, which is much easier to answer honestly than "is she resilient?"
"If you were managing her again, what would you do differently from the start?" This one's my favourite. It lets the reference give you the weakness while framing it as their own lesson. People answer it surprisingly openly.
"What kind of manager does she need to do her best work?" The answer tells you a lot about what went wrong when the manager wasn't that kind.
"Would you hire her again for the same role? For a bigger one?" Listen for the pause. A reference who says "for the same role, absolutely" and hesitates on the bigger one has just told you something.
Listen for what's missing
The words matter less than the gaps. If you ask about a hard project and get a generic answer about her positive attitude, that's a non-answer. Gently ask again: "Can you think of a specific moment?"
If a reference is enthusiastic about everything except the one thing your role needs most, notice that. A manager who raves about someone's creativity and goes vague on follow-through is telling you, politely, about follow-through.
Ask for the reference they didn't give you
Candidates pick their references, so of course they pick friendly ones. I don't think backchanneling behind someone's back is fair, and it's risky if they haven't told their current employer they're looking. But it's reasonable to ask the candidate directly for one more name.
"Could you connect me with someone who worked alongside you but didn't manage you?" A peer often gives a more honest picture than a boss. They saw the day-to-day, not the status updates.
Most good candidates say yes without blinking. If someone gets cagey about a peer reference, that's worth a gentle follow-up question.
Do it before you've decided
The biggest mistake, and it's a common one, is calling references after you've already made up your mind. By then you're listening for confirmation. Anything negative gets explained away because the offer's basically drafted.
Call them while you're still choosing between two people, or at least before the final debrief. Write down what you heard before you talk about it with the team. Then the reference is evidence, not a ritual.
Twenty-five minutes, not ten
A good reference call takes about twenty-five minutes. That's longer than most people give it, and it's still the cheapest due diligence in the whole hiring process. A bad hire costs months of salary, a manager's attention, and sometimes a client.
In the account manager example, a single lost client could easily cost more than her yearly salary. A better question on a ten-minute call might have flagged it. Ask about the bad month every time.
