Are China Employment Reference Checks Useful?
China employment reference checks are a great idea. but rarely useful in practice. Let’s dig inside here and see what is up.
In my previous experience, reference checks are like kicking the tires before you buy a car. If you kick the tires, you may feel better but you are far from knowing if this a good quality car. Companies ask for reference information and then do not call is the most standard. They feel the call is not useful if you have a reference, and these people gave a reference so no need to call.
Some companies actually make the call, but have not real insight on what to say so the talk is not very valuable and in the future they just do not call. I guess many of you have seen how this goes. Also note How Employment Candidates Write Resumes.
In truth, people do not want to kick people out on the background check. The had a good interview and do not want to kick out someone they like. I think many times our self worth is tied to finding the right person ourselves. The background check is just something you ought to do, but actually even checking the box does not actually happen. Since checking does not really matter, then it often totally falls away.
China Employment Reference Checks Must Have Traction
In rare cases, companies actually call the reference with intent to ask real questions. Unfortunately, Chinese candidates are way ahead of us and can have a friend pretend to be that old boss. If that friend is as good at lying as the candidate, then you are doomed. That happens and is not rare. Some friends are better at faking then others. Most would be hard for anyone to detect or even to throw out their great candidate. You may also like You Need Real Candidate Data So We Dig Deeper.
Finally, in the rarest of cases, you actually know the boss. Unfortunately, though the boss fired the candidate , he still may want him to find another place. He wants to help him get a job. We have seen this more than once. They will lie for the candidate to protect them. It is just that hard to get the real data.
Getting the right person on the phone is also not easy if you are searching for the reference yourself. This job is not for the faint of heart. Furthermore, the goal of the reference check too often is not to kick people out but rather to check the box. Companies rarely have the heart to go this far only to find out it is really quite deep water to know who to listen to.
We do not kick the tires. We also do not accept others to recruit and then we do the check. The interview process when integrated with the China employment reference checks is how we achieve more than 95% good hires.
Many recruiting companies say they will do reference checks. Almost all have never kicked out a candidate that they knew the customer would hire. Most have never kicked out any at all.
Bad Hiring Even Causes Hostile Takeovers in some cases. Do the Background Check right via SHI Group.