The Benefits of Choosing Automated Reference Checks over Traditional Methods

“The future influences the present just as much as the past.” – Friedrich Nietzsche, Philosopher

As a hiring manager or HR, how many times have you wished that you could spend your time on your other important work instead of playing phone tag with candidates and their references? Well, you’re not alone! The majority of HR departments need better tools and ways of handling the arduous process that is reference checking. Phone calls, email follow-ups, and trying to get past the voicemail and reach references is a lengthy and time-consuming process. Fair to say that it isn’t the most optimal way to divide your time when there is so much more to do in the recruitment process. There is a solution though. Three words – automated reference checks.

Don’t get alarmed, we aren’t talking about using robotic calls to get the information. Rather we are talking about Credibled’s innovative approach to automated reference checks. More specifically, we are talking about how our platform, in-depth questionnaire and efficient reference checking process will blow traditional reference checks out of the water.

Let’s have a look at the many benefits of choosing an automated reference checking process like Credibled has over more traditional means.

Automated reference checks save you a ton of time.

Table of Contents

An Automated Reference Check = More Time on Your Hands

The first and most obvious benefit is that automated reference checks are a time-saver. As a talent acquisition personnel, there is a wide range of tasks that you need to take care of. Spending all your time playing catch up over phone calls, emails and SMS can be a great misuse of your valuable time. When you have to re-work job descriptions, adjust benefits or even sharpen your interview questions for when the time comes, these things take time. Automated reference checks can help you circumvent distractions and tedious tasks while still helping you grow that team.

Give the Reference Check High Priority

There are few things as disappointing as spending two rounds of interviews locking in on a single candidate, only to find out from the reference that they aren’t qualified for the role. Due to the time-consuming nature of traditional reference checks, there isn’t much option other than to push it to the end of the interview process.

However, with the emergence of Credibled’s automated reference checking platform, you can send out a detailed reference checking questionnaire with a click of a button. Since everything is automated, all you have to do is focus on the interview while the reference check is happening parallelly. Once done, you have all the results in your hand before the next phase of finalization. This is a significant amount of time, effort and money saved on your part.

"What new technology does is create new opportunities to do a job that customers want done."

- Tim O'Reilly, founder of O'Reilly Media

Gain More Insight into Your Applicant’s Professional History

When you consider an applicant’s history, you need to keep in mind that you’re looking at their most polished and best version on paper. The same applies to the interviews. The answers to a majority of questions are well-rehearsed. So, this begs the question, how do you get down to the truth of who they are, and who you are hiring?

The solution that most HRs come up with is reference checking. By all means, it is a great solution, but again in most cases, time is an issue. When reference checking, you have enough time to ask a fixed number of questions and get a rough gauge of the candidate. However, this doesn’t leave much room to dive into detail and explore more ambiguous areas that might arise throughout the discussion.

Our automated reference checking questionnaire changes that. You can ask the reference specifically, in-depth questions that will reveal exactly what you want to know about the candidate. Of course, you also want to leave space for additional comments as well so references can give true, unfiltered feedback that speaks to the candidate’s overall eligibility. Well, not to worry! We have you covered in that area as well.

It’s Easier to Compare Candidates with an Automated Reference Check

When you complete a reference check with Credibled, you get back a comprehensive report on each candidate. So, instead of calling up each reference, taking notes and trying to recall what exactly they said, you have everything you need in one central database.

This makes the job of comparing two or more eligible candidates that much easier. We all know how challenging it can be to pick the right candidate when you have more than one eligible resume on the table. It is made doubly challenging when you consider that each candidate has around three references. That’s a lot of information to handle manually. By using an automated reference checking application, you can easily make the right hiring decision.

The automated reference checking process can be used to build a database of passive candidates

Use Reference Database to Build a Passive Pool of Candidate

Building a passive candidate pool of talent can be very useful for a business in the long run. It is a given that no matter what you do, finding objectively great candidates is hard work. Once you do make that ideal hire, you know where the bar lies and you aspire to meet it every time. So, how do we do that?

The answer is quite simple actually; use your reference database! The connections you make with references throughout an automated reference check can be quite the passive database. You can reach out to these people when you have job openings that might fit their abilities.

Here’s the bonus though, building a passive database doesn’t have to take much extra effort or resources. What little effort you put in, is completely worth it. Think about it – for every candidate you add, given that each has around 3 references to list, you will also add around 3 passive candidate leads to the database.

Win the Race to Securing Top Talent with Credibled

With all the above-mentioned points in mind, you now know that automated reference checking is the path to a brighter recruitment future. Now the only question is: Where do you start? We would encourage you to turn your attention towards Credibled.

Credibled is an industry-leading solution when it comes to automated reference checks that streamlines the reference checking process for you. Employers, candidates and referees can experience the transparency of our accurate and accelerated reference checks that will give you results with amazing turnaround times!