The reference call founders keep botching

The reference call is usually the last serious step before an offer. It is also the step most often wasted. Founders who have run twenty or thirty senior hires have views on how to do this well. Founders running their first three do not, and it shows.

We run reference calls for retained searches ourselves. We also brief clients on how to run their own. The pattern below is what actually surfaces signal, and it looks very different from the standard “three references, thirty minutes each, warm and pleasant” default.

The default reference call produces no information

The default reference call asks four questions: what was it like to work with this person, what are their strengths, what are their weaknesses, would you hire them again. All four are questions the candidate has prepared the referee for. All four produce answers the referee has rehearsed. The information density is close to zero.

That the answers are positive is not a signal. The candidate chose the referee. What you learn is that the candidate is capable of choosing sympathetic referees, which is not a differentiator among senior hires.

What produces signal instead

Two structural shifts change everything.

The first is to ask about specific, dated situations rather than character. “Tell me about the last time you saw them handle a project that was going badly. What did they do in the first week.” That question is much harder to rehearse. The answers reveal how the referee actually thinks about the candidate, not what they have been briefed to say. If the referee cannot produce a concrete example, that itself is informative - the working relationship is probably not as substantial as the referee’s title suggested.

The second is to move backwards through the CV. Most reference calls anchor on the most recent role. That is the role the candidate has spent the most time preparing the referee about. The role three back is more revealing. The referee has less script, and the pattern of how the candidate has grown over eight years surfaces in a way the last twelve months cannot show.

Off-list references are worth more than on-list

Every candidate provides a reference list. The referees on it will say broadly positive things. The reference calls that change our recommendation almost always come from off-list contacts - people we or the client know in common with the candidate through the professional community. Not calling those people is leaving the most useful signal on the table.

The awkwardness of off-list reference calls is real. It is also usually managed by asking the candidate up front which people at their last firm you can speak to freely, and which are politically sensitive. Most candidates are more comfortable with this than founders assume, provided the ask is respectful and the timing is after the final round.

Who runs the call matters

The founder should run at least one of the reference calls personally. Delegating all three to the recruiter or an internal People lead is a common time-saver and a common mistake. What the founder learns on the call informs the offer conversation and the first ninety days of the working relationship in ways a written summary cannot substitute for. Twenty minutes on the phone yourself is worth more than an hour of somebody else’s notes.

The one question we keep coming back to

Late in the call, once rapport is established, we ask a version of: “If this candidate were struggling six months in, what would the failure mode most likely look like?” The referees who give a specific, credible answer to that question are describing someone they know well, and the answer is almost always predictive. The referees who deflect the question with generic reassurance are not describing someone they know well, and the reference should be discounted accordingly.

Reference calls are not a formality. Run them as if they were an interview, and they will earn their place in the process.