Watchfire's Karen Clemens. (Darren Brown, OBJ)

Some might remember the famous Seinfeld scene in which George Costanza asked his friend, Kramer, to play the CEO of the fictitious latex company, Vandelay Industries, so he could give him a positive reference in order to extend his unemployment insurance. It seems like such a simple trick, one has to wonder if references are an effective tool in digging out the truth about what an employee is really like, or are they stacked in the favour of the candidate to give only one side of the story?

But references are a necessary part of the due diligence required when hiring a candidate, if at the very least to check dates of employment and education for accuracy.

Karen Davis Clemens, vice-president of human resources at the security software firm Watchfire, said the way to get to the truth is all about how you ask the questions. She should know – her company has doubled in size over the past two years.

OBJ: What does Watchfire do and how fast have you been growing?

CLEMENS: Our company develops software for scanning websites for security vulnerabilities or web application vulnerabilities, it's a very specific type of security. We've been around for about 10 years but we have been focused on security for the past three. We have probably hired 100 people in the past two years. We have four locations but the largest location is in Ottawa. We also have offices in Boston, Israel and Ireland.

OBJ: What positions do you hire the most for?

CLEMENS: We hire quite a bit for sales, we have a sales organization in our Ottawa office. We also hire for professional services, technical support and marketing. I would say those are the ongoing positions.

OBJ: Do you ask for references when you hire?

CLEMENS: We do ask for references, it's a part of the process that we don't skip. The way we use it is to either validate that a positive thing we are thinking about a candidate is true, and we also use it if we have a nagging doubt or a concern. We use it as a way to probe it further.

We have a list of core values that we are trying to push with all our candidates: integrity, customer focus, innovation, excellence, adaptability, bias for action. Our CEO, however, has his own shorter list of core values that he believes epitomizes the Watchfire culture: hungry, humble and smart. These three words have really become a litmus test for us when looking to add new employees to our team. As a result, it is something that all managers look for when interviewing candidates directly and it is something we check for when doing reference checks as well.

OBJ: What kinds of references do you use?

CLEMENS: We ask them to supply references for us. In the sales department, we get quite specific about asking for a customer, a manager, a peer. In other roles such as marketing, marketing is in a service role to the sales organization, so we try to get someone in the sales team that they might have worked with. So depending on their roles, there are certain people we might be more interested in talking to.

That helps to validate your initial instincts from the interview. We use a behavioural interview technique. Behavioural interviewing means that the best way to predict how a person is going to behave in the future is to get an understanding of how they behaved in certain situations the past.

So you are asking them about circumstances or contexts, specific actions they took and the results of those actions. Our managers go through behavioural training. We use behavioural interviewing techniques on our references as well.

OBJ: What do you ask to dig out the truth?

CLEMENS: I'll give you an example. Our company is in a dynamic industry. The security industry is changing very fast and it is very change-oriented. So one of the things we look for are people who are comfortable with an environment that is dynamic, that is always changing. If we're doing an interview and we sense that someone needs lots and lots of certainty and might be a change-avert person, because maybe there were a few things in their interview, we would look into that.

That would be a great thing you could talk to the manager about and ask them, "Was there a specific time when this employee had to change with a drastic change to their environment?" and then probe that answer. If they answer, "Well, they were OK," you can ask, "Was there anything that they didn't do that they could have done a little bit better?" Or, "Was there anything in their actions or behaviour that would indicate that this was a difficult change for them?"

So if a manager said, "They look really good but I am concerned about their ability to focus on multiple things at a time," that would be something that I would be looking for with the candidate's references. I would go deep on multi-tasking questions.

OBJ: Many people think that asking for references doesn't really work because the candidate has selected people to say nothing but good things about them. Do you find that's true?

CLEMENS: Very rarely do you have a blatantly negative reference because they are selected. I will tell you, though, there have been times when I have had a nagging doubt that has been reinforced. There is a way to tastefully ask the questions so that they don't sound negative, but they are giving you what you consider to be a negative reference.

For multitasking, for example, if a manager comes back and tells you, "I found that if I was able to just give them a little bit of work at a time and manage them that way they were fine." If this is someone who is supposed to be in a self-starter position and they need a lot of hand-holding, that might be a negative reference. So they are not blatantly negative, but rather subtly supporting concerns that you have in the interview.

THE EXPERTS SAY

I ask for specific references. When we are recruiting, we ask for bosses, co-workers, internal clients and external clients if they exist. Then, it's not a question of finding out if they are good or bad, but finding out if they are going to be a good fit for your company. I ask questions about their fit: what made them successful in that particular organization and what didn't.

The biggest mistake that people make when checking references is not asking enough questions and not asking open-ended questions. So instead of asking what you think someone's weaknesses are, ask, "Where have you seen them more successful and where have you seen them less successful?"

Most people are happy to give that information because it's not a good or bad reference, it's just information.

Most people forget to do academic references and those are important because the place where people fudge their background the most is on their academic history. Someone will put a university on there and it will say just "economics" without any dates. They could have attended one or two courses but the person reading it assumes it means that they graduated. That happens a lot. It is an easy, easy thing to verify. When I interview people I tell them that I am going to do that so they can 'fess up front about it.

Gerlinde Herrmann, founder and president, Herrmann Group

You would be surprised about what references say about their former employees. A lot of employees don't ask the tough questions such as "Will you give me a good reference? Will you speak highly of me?" We see on many occasions when we ask for three references, one will be mediocre, one will be good and one will be lousy. And then we're like, "What were you thinking?"

There are three kinds of references. One is business, a name rank and serial number. Another kind is personal, where a business won't allow you to provide a business reference but they can talk to someone's character. These can be very good provided that you are speaking to someone they reported to in the past. Then there is a soft reference. This is when you look around and ask if anyone knows a candidate to get information on them.

It's worth taking a few minutes to make sure. Sometimes clients want to move fast because they don't want to lose the candidate, but consider the cost of a re-hire. In one instance, we found a candidate who was perfect and our client was talking about a letter of offer already. We went through the regular process and did the reference check and the results that came back stopped the process dead in its tracks.

Brent Thomson, managing partner, Peak Sales Recruiting Inc.

COMING UP: IT Security

May 7: Wireless security and remote access

May 14: Balancing access control and practicality - identification and authorization

May 21: Backing everything up - safety deposit boxes vs. remote file hosting

May 28: Social engineering - training employees against high tech tricks like phishing, trojans, pretexting