I end up doing a lot of interviews and reference checks for my clients. I’m very comfortable with the whole process, but today I heard of a great question to ask when doing a reference check on someone. A bit of back story first… By default a candidate will give references of people they know will give favorable reviews; we all know this. So the goal of a reference check is to get that person to tell you the actual truth about the person rather than the normal fluffy stuff. One way is to straight out ask what the candidate is not good at. This might work, but an experienced person will gave some reasonable comeback that doesn’t make the candidate look too bad. So you have to get tricky with it.  So here it is…

“<candidate name> sounds pretty good. What people and processes would we need to surround them with to make them the most effective in this role?”

I love this question. It seems so harmless; but it reveals a candidates flaws and gaps in skill set. You should be able to determine whether they are hands on or not if they need “people under them to help them out”. You should be able to tell if they are a true leader or not if “they would work well with a strong visionary”. You get the point. Anyone else have great questions?

Thanks to Scott for this!