Guidelines for Conducting Reference Checks for Regular Roles (Research Faculty and Staff positions)

Reference checks are used to diminish ambiguity, obtain specific job-related information, further evaluate a candidate’s technical and other professional skills, and verify the accuracy of a candidate's background. The following are best practices at CIRES for checking references: 

Reference checks should be conducted at the appropriate point in the search process--that means, not until the finalists for the role have been identified. Please do not ask candidates to submit letters of recommendation with their initial application, as our teams will not be reviewing these for each candidate. By asking for professional references at an early stage, you may also put a candidate in a difficult position of having to talk to their current colleagues or supervisor and reveal information about their job search. Numerous applicants in every pool will not be qualified for the role, and it does not make sense for them to spend time gathering reference information that we will not review.   

If you conduct HireVue interviews, which are considered screening interviews, please do not check references concurrently with those screenings. It is still too early in the process, and it is also difficult to identify if an applicant is a top candidate through a screening interview.  

We would like the hiring committee Chair to request professional references when your team has identified the true finalists for the role (usually 2-5 top candidates), and after these finalists have accepted your invitation to interview either virtually or in-person (these interviews are usually 45 to 60 minutes in length, involve the full hiring committee, and offer an opportunity for the candidate to both answer and ask questions). If you have visa restrictions or urgent start dates, make sure that a candidate can meet the required start date before you invite them to interview or request references from their professional contacts. Please reach out to CIRES HR so that we can help you screen candidates for eligibility.    

At the time that you created the posting for your role with the help of CIRES HR, you were asked to decide if you had a preference for letters of recommendation or a Crosschq survey and how many references would be required. Crosschq is a digital reference check solution, which offers a library of questionnaires from which to select at the time of posting. You can see a sample Crosschq survey here.  

While Crosschqs are appropriate for all position types, letters of recommendation may provide limited information on candidates' technical skills or overall areas of concern. 

References provided by friends or relatives are never acceptable. 

Because you must have a candidate’s consent to reach out to their professional references, please make sure that you contact CIRES HR when you are ready to request references. Central HR will send out an automated request to each finalist, asking them to enter contact information for their referees. When a candidate enters contact information for their professional references in either the Avature or the Crosschq platform, they are also granting the hiring committee official authorization for us to contact those referees. This is, thus, the preferred method for requesting professional references. Always obtain written authorization from the candidate for each reference before you reach out to them.  

Please respect a candidate’s confidentiality:

• The hiring manager will have access to each finalist's reference reports. Please consider whether or not this information should be shared with other members of the hiring committee. In cases where the finalist will be the supervisor of a search committee member, or will be reporting to the selected candidate, it is best practice not to share the full reports. Letters of recommendation will be available to all hiring committee members through the applicant tracking system. 
• Please do not contact a candidate’s current or past employers or their employees to seek additional information about them, their job performance, or their candidacy, except when such contact is expressly authorized by the candidate as part of the reference check process, said authorization is in writing, and you have contacted CIRES HR to make sure this is appropriate.
• Maintain the highest level of confidentiality throughout the process and never reveal the content of a letter of recommendation or a Crosschq report to anyone outside the hiring committee. 
• Do not delegate the reference gathering process to anyone outside the hiring committee. The hiring chair should conduct the reference check calls. Reference check calls may happen as a follow up to a letter of recommendation or a Crosschq survey.   

Phone calls: 

• If you follow up with a referee after reading a Crosschq report or a letter of recommendation, please introduce yourself and mention that they are a finalist for a role. Do not say that they have been selected, as you need to complete all reference checks before you can actually make an official selection.  
• It is best practice not to cold-call a professional reference. Please reach out to them by email first and make an appointment to hold the reference check call at a convenient time for the referee. Some applicants offer common office phone numbers for their references. Please don’t leave confidential information through voicemail. Please state your name and callback number and ask the person of interest to call you back. 
• Consider whether performance problems reported by previous employers are in areas that might affect performance in the position you are filling and how long it has been since the performance issues were reported, as there may have been opportunity for growth since then. 
• Be sure there is a job-related reason for asking any and all questions.  
• Do not raise any questions that fall under the Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) protected class information, such as questions regarding gender, race, color, national origin, age, disability, or religion.

*As an alternative to letters of recommendation or Crosschq questionnaires, there are very few CIRES units that check references by calling referees directly, prior to requesting a letter of recommendation. Although neither CIRES HR nor Central HR recommends this method for checking references, please follow these instructions if you do: 

a) Notify the finalist that you would like to contact their professional references

b) Obtain a list of names, titles, professional relationships, email addresses, and phone numbers directly from each finalist

c) Ask the candidate to offer you a formal permission statement in writing to contact their references (they should include the name of all who may be contacted).

d) Please use the Phone Reference Contact Form below when completing phone calls to make sure that you focus on relevant, professional, appropriate information. 

e) Since the University of Colorado Boulder does not recognize this method for reference checks as equivalent to the letters of recommendation or Crosschq processes, you will still need to collect at least one formal letter of recommendation to complete the candidate's file as per the university's requirements. 

PHONE REFERENCE CONTACT FORM

Candidate's Name: ____________________________ 

Reference Check provided by: ___________________________ 

Organization: _________________________________ 

Title: _________________________ 

Phone Number: ______________________________ 

Date: ______________________ 

Thank you for taking my call. My name is (name) from the University of Colorado at Boulder. (Applicant’s name) is a finalist for the position of (job title) and has indicated that he/she was employed by your organization from (beginning/end dates). 

1. What was the nature and length of your relationship with the candidate? 
2. Can you describe their main responsibilities?
3. Why did they leave the position? (if relevant) 
4. In stressful situations, describe how the candidate reacted. Be specific. 
5. Additionally, how do they handle difficult people? What is their conflict resolution protocol? 
6. How did the candidate work independently as opposed to checking in with stakeholders and their supervisor? 
7. Did the candidate always conduct their dealings with others in a tactful manner? Explain. 
8. What are the candidate’s key accomplishments or impact on the organization? 
9. What area(s) of growth could the candidate focus on? 
10. If you were going to provide advice on how to best guide this person, what would it be? 
11. Would you hire or want to work with this individual again? ____ Yes ____ No (If No, Then Why?) 

Additional Questions for Leadership Roles:

1. How would you describe the candidate’s institutional and personnel leadership skills? 
2. Please describe the candidate’s political acumen and ability to work with senior leadership? 

Reference Check Completed By: ___________________

Thank you very much for talking with me about this candidate. 

I appreciate your time.