Are basic factual references now standard when recruiting?

[Rainallnight]

I work for a small charity (no HR department) and am trying to recruit someone at the moment.

The former employers of our preferred candidate say it’s their policy only to provide ‘X worked here in the role of Y, from A - Z’ kind of references.

Is this more standard/widespread now? I don’t remember it being like this last time we recruited. And how on earth are we supposed to find out a meaningful account of how someone did in past roles?

Yes, quite standard now.

Absolutely standard

Yes

I think it’s been standard for ages since a company was sued for giving someone a good reference in order to get rid of them.

Yep standard.

Been that way since I entered the workforce 20 years ago

Yep - we say as little as possible and if they are working for us and they are performing poorly it is not in our interest to put off the next employer

Yep, it’s all about personal references now. I do personal reference calls for people I’ve worked with in other companies (obviously only if I think they were good!) Usually takes 10-15 minutes with their prospective employer

I remember a job i started over 25 years ago being like that so it certainly nothing new

When did references ever meaningful accounts?

Both companies I've worked at in last 20 years only provided those references. Presumably for legal reasons, unable to say ' was late daily, stank and hid to avoid work' 😆. Unfortunately they can't then say 'we are disappointed to loose this member of staff, they were brilliant ' either.

Yes

Yes. Totally.

Yes. Standard

All my references have been like that. Haven’t been asked for a personal reference in decades. Well, they asked for a name and address for them, but never followed it up. Last four years they didn't ask for a personal reference at all.

Have a look at LinkedIn in case there are any testimonials

Yep standard, if any reference requests come to me directly for my staff I'm not allowed to answer them, I need to forward onto HR so they can provide the job title and dates of employment

I'm not sure they were ever a reliable account of how people did in past roles OP. There's always been an incentive to lie about a bad egg so they'll piss off elsewhere.

This has been the case for years, surely? I can’t remember when I last wrote a reference for someone, they’re all handled by HR and confirm dates of employment and that’s about it.

I have seen employers that will only respond in that way though send out a reference request for someone hoping to move to them which includes questions about whether the referee would employ them again and whether they were leaving under an agreement!

Normal. Also means companies don't have to lie to get rid of useless staff.

Have been for years.

as far as im aware thats how its now ment to be, but yes it does not help if they are a bad egg etc but then its who to believe if that was the case the company / managers or the staff member etc some aparently get around it by the whole i could not say that they were x,y,z but that depends if you know someone from their ex company etc

They were fired with enthusiasm

I think it has been like that for decades in most industries (to avoid getting sued by the former employee or their new employer for a duff reference).

I have recently “retired” from being a charity Trustee. I was only involved with recruiting CEO’s and fellow Trustees, but we would always ask for 2 referees willing to give character references (oral or written).

You are probably going to be doing DBS checks for them, aren’t you? We used to be curious about candidates flitting between too many roles (unless there was a good reason), but most “concerns” will emerge through interview (we often used to involve staff if it was a “team-player” role).

We only give standard basic references. When we request, we ask for more but accept a basic one, too.
We do DBS checks as standard.
For senior roles and for certain other roles, we might ask for a character reference but that's a small minority of roles.

Instead, you have to ask decent interview questions (with follow ups, if necessary). Use their probation period properly - get them doing all aspects of the role as quickly as possible, set clear targets and expectations and raise any issues /give feedback quickly.

Where I work officially stopped bothering with references below a certain grade last year because they did a review and discovered that the references received hadn't changed a single hiring decisions in years.