Reference checks often happen when a company is already close to making a hiring decision. The interviews are finished, the team has identified a preferred candidate, and someone contacts a previous manager or colleague to confirm that everything looks reasonable.
The conversation can become predictable. Was the candidate good at their job? Were they reliable? Would you hire them again? These questions aren't necessarily useless, but they often produce broad answers that reveal very little about how someone actually worked.
A reference check becomes more valuable when it moves beyond general approval and focuses on the responsibilities, working situations, and capabilities that matter for the new role. The goal isn't to find someone who will say the candidate was excellent. It's to understand what the candidate has demonstrated in a real working environment.
General praise doesn't tell you very much
Imagine calling two references for different candidates. One describes their former employee as hardworking, professional, and a pleasure to work with. The other explains how their colleague handled a difficult customer escalation, coordinated with several departments, and helped resolve a problem under a tight deadline.
Both references are positive, but the second gives the hiring team something more useful to evaluate.
General praise is difficult to interpret because people use words differently. One manager's definition of initiative may be another manager's expectation of normal performance. Someone described as a strong communicator may be excellent at presenting ideas but less comfortable handling disagreements.
Specific examples provide context. They show what the person was responsible for, what happened, and how they responded. Instead of asking whether someone was a good employee, employers can ask about situations that reveal the capabilities the new role requires.
Better reference check questions start with the role
A useful reference check should reflect the work the candidate is being considered for. A customer support role may require patience, problem-solving, and the ability to manage difficult conversations. An operations role may depend more heavily on coordination, prioritization, and responding when plans change.
Those differences should influence the questions employers ask.
For example, a reference check might include:
Can you describe a situation where the candidate had to solve an unexpected problem?
What responsibilities did they handle independently?
How did they respond when priorities changed?
What kind of feedback helped them improve?
In what working environment did they perform particularly well?
Which skills would they benefit from developing further?
These questions invite examples rather than simple approval. They also make it easier to connect the feedback to the requirements of the position.
Employers don't need an entirely different reference-checking process for every candidate. A consistent set of role-relevant questions helps hiring teams compare the information they receive while allowing follow-up questions when a reference provides something worth exploring.
A reference only sees part of the candidate
Reference checks have an important limitation: the person providing feedback has only experienced the candidate in a particular environment.
A previous manager may have worked with someone during a period of rapid growth, while another colleague knew them in a highly structured organization. Their experiences may differ because they observed different responsibilities, expectations, and working relationships.
This doesn't automatically mean either reference is unreliable. It means the context matters.
If someone says a candidate struggled with independence, the hiring team should understand what independence meant in that workplace. Were expectations unclear? Did the role require decisions beyond the person's experience? Was the feedback based on repeated situations or one particular incident?
It's also worth remembering that references are usually selected by candidates, and the people providing them may naturally emphasize positive experiences. Reference checks should therefore be treated as one source of evidence, not an objective measurement of a person's overall ability.
Use references to investigate, not simply confirm
By the reference-checking stage, hiring teams often have a preferred candidate. That can make the process vulnerable to confirmation bias: people may pay more attention to feedback that supports a decision they've already begun to make.
A better approach is to identify what the team still needs to understand before contacting references.
Perhaps the interviews demonstrated strong technical knowledge, but the role also requires coordinating with nontechnical stakeholders. Perhaps a candidate described managing competing priorities, but the team wants more context about how they approached those situations in practice.
Reference checks can help explore those questions. They may reinforce the evidence gathered during interviews, add useful context, or reveal something the hiring team needs to discuss further.
The information should still be interpreted carefully. A vague comment isn't proof of a problem, and one reference's opinion shouldn't automatically outweigh consistent evidence from other parts of the process. Employers should also follow applicable privacy requirements, obtain appropriate consent, and avoid questions unrelated to the job.
The value is in the evidence, not the approval
A reference check shouldn't be reduced to whether someone gives a candidate a positive recommendation. Most hiring decisions involve trade-offs, and the information gathered from previous working relationships can help teams understand those trade-offs more clearly.
A candidate may be particularly effective when working independently but need more support when managing unfamiliar stakeholders. Another may have excellent technical capabilities while still developing their ability to lead a team. Neither observation automatically determines whether someone should be hired. Their importance depends on the responsibilities of the position.
This is why reference checks work best when they are connected to the same job-related criteria used throughout the hiring process. Interviews, work samples, and references may provide different perspectives, but the team should understand what each piece of information contributes to the decision.
The purpose of a reference check isn't simply to hear that a candidate is good. It's to learn something specific that helps the hiring team make a better-informed decision.
Hirona helps hiring teams conduct structured first-round interviews and gather consistent candidate responses for human review. Clear criteria make it easier to evaluate candidates throughout the hiring process, from initial interviews to later-stage decisions. See how it works →