Reference Checks Are Useless

And why they tell you more about privilege than performance.

Last week, I posted the following on LinkedIn:

"We need to stop pretending reference checks are objective.

If your reference check just confirms the person you already planned to hire…congrats, you’ve wasted everyone’s time.

Reference checks aren’t neutral. They’re privilege checks.

Who gets to hand over a glowing list of long-standing professional contacts? People who have access to good networks, stable managers, and workplaces that invested in them.

Who struggles? People newer to the field. Those who’ve survived toxic workplaces. Candidates from marginalized backgrounds who don’t have a roster of names ready to vouch for them.

And if your reference check is the first time you’re learning something critical about a candidate, that’s not proof references work. That’s proof your interview process doesn’t.

Whose word are you trusting more? a candidate you just put through a rigorous, multi-step vetting process, or a manager with their own baggage, biases, and motivations?

If the only safeguard between you and a bad hire is a quick phone call to someone the candidate handpicked, your process doesn’t need a reference check. It needs a redesign.

Sure, some roles require background checks for legal or safety reasons. But that’s not what we’re talking about here. We’re talking about the lazy, default “because we’ve always done it” reference calls that do more to reinforce inequity than prevent risk.

Hiring should be about creating opportunity, not gatekeeping it."

The post garnered a lot of traction, with over 100 comments and counting, and the responses made me think this would be a good topic for a standalone piece. So, using some of those comments, let’s talk about why Reference Checks are an archaic, unnecessary, discriminatory practice, why some people still cling to them, and what we can do differently. But first, please admire my favourite comment from the LinkedIn post.

You better believe I clicked on Darth Trader’s LinkedIn profile, and was not surprised to see that it was clearly a burner account, created solely to comment the above masterpiece on my post. Out of the 26,369 impressions my post received, I was relieved to see only one person “liked” Darth’s comment. And because I’m a consummate professional, I did not delete the comment, nor feed the troll. But let me just say this, Darth Trader, I’ll let your comment serve as its own reference check.

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As I shared above, reference checks, at best, confirm the decision you’ve already made. At worst, they reinforce privilege and bias while giving the illusion of rigour.

The stories people shared on this LinkedIn post were telling. One person lost out on a job because nobody from their old workplace was still employed there to act as a reference, and that made them seem “untrustworthy.” Another said they’ve been recycling the same four references for over a decade because every company they worked for in the past had gone under...so how accurate are those old references today? Someone else shared that their boss had praised them as “outstanding” during their tenure, but trashed their reputation when called for a reference. On the flip side, people admitted they’ve seen managers give glowing references to poor performers just to get them out the door!

Studies consistently show that traditional reference checks have low criterion validity. They simply don’t predict job performance in any reliable way.¹ Even when they’re completed, compliance is uneven. In one study of over 900 participants, reference providers often refused to share details or sanitized their responses for fear of liability.² And even when everyone knows references aren’t reliable, hiring managers still over-weight them. Experiments with HR practitioners show that positive references disproportionately sway decisions, regardless of their predictive value.³

Some readers pointed out that in certain industries, like education, healthcare, and financial services, references are a contractual requirement. That’s true, and it means there will always be a small number of roles where they’re unavoidable. But even then, the practice doesn’t do what people think it does. In many jurisdictions, you’re not allowed to give a negative reference or conduct back-channel checks. So the entire exercise often collapses into a perfunctory confirmation: yes, this person worked here. Yes, they held that title. Doesn’t really seem worth the effort, does it?

And then there are those who believe reference checks should remain in place precisely because they act as gatekeepers. One commenter put it bluntly: employment is a privilege, not a right, and if you don’t have strong references, that’s your problem. That line of thinking exposes what’s really at stake. For some, hiring isn’t about creating opportunities, but about protecting access for those who already have it. Reference checks don’t just filter candidates; they reinforce the idea that work itself is conditional, a favour extended only to the deserving.

None of this tells us anything about a candidate’s actual ability to do the work. What it does tell us is how political, biased, and inconsistent this practice has always been. This just reinforced to me that all references actually measure is power dynamics in past workplaces. And when we continue to rely on them, we’re validating those politics as part of the hiring process.

What Can We Do Differently?

Although the majority of people I heard from agreed that reference checks are a relic, there’s a smaller camp that insists they can still be helpful when done more intentionally. Instead of treating them as a pass/fail test, they use reference calls to ask things like: What helps this person thrive? What kinds of environments bring out their best work? Where should we focus their onboarding?

On the surface, this sounds promising. Why not get a head start by asking someone who’s worked closely with the candidate where they excel and where they might need extra support?

The problem is that you’re not hiring this person into their old job. You’re hiring them into a brand new environment. The culture, the team, the systems, the resources…none of those conditions will be the same. And yet you’re about to base a development plan on feedback pulled from a completely different experience.

That means you risk onboarding someone based on the past conditions of their last role instead of the reality of the one they’re stepping into. You’re not setting them up for success; you’re setting them up to be managed through someone else’s lens.

Some will argue that the benefit, in and of itself, is perspective: you’re not just relying on what the candidate says about themselves. But really, both options carry risk. A candidate may understate their needs out of humility or overconfidence. A past manager may exaggerate or minimize issues based on their own biases or limited vantage point. Neither is objective. And when you’re investing real money and trust in this hire, why would you bet on what their old boss thinks instead of building a relationship where the candidate can tell you what they need directly?

If you want real insight, skip the reference call and dig deeper in the interview:

What we typically ask in a reference check:

• What are this person’s strengths?

• Where do they need coaching or development?

• If you were creating an onboarding plan for them, what would you focus on in their first 30-60-90 days?

• What kind of manager do they work best under?

• Would you hire or work with them again?

These sound reasonable, but notice what we’re doing: asking someone outside the organization, with a completely different context, to predict how a candidate will succeed in our environment. That’s not fair to the candidate, and it’s not reliable for us.

What you should ask the candidate directly:

• What conditions help you do your best work?

• When you step into a new role, what do you need in your first 30 days to feel confident?

• What helps you build trust with a new manager or team?

• Can you share a time when you had to adjust to a new environment quickly? What made that transition easier or harder?

• How do you prefer to receive feedback and coaching so that it feels constructive and actionable?

• In your last role, what parts of the environment or processes felt challenging, and what changes would have helped create a better experience?

One set of questions outsources judgment to someone who no longer works with the candidate and may or may not be trustworthy. The other treats the candidate as the expert on their own success and brings them into the process as a partner.

Sure, you could argue for combining the two. Take both the candidate’s input and a manager’s perspective, identify gaps, and shape an onboarding plan from there. But at that point, you’ve turned a simple hire into a full-scale research project. Just hire the person.

Turning the Lens Back on Employers

Here’s another idea that came out of the discussion: flip the script. Instead of candidates scrambling to provide references, what if employers had to do the same? Imagine asking for references from former employees who held the role you’re applying for. Imagine being able to ask: How were you supported? What kind of culture did you experience? Would you recommend this organization to someone you care about?

Of course, most companies would resist. They’d argue that those voices aren’t reliable. That people who’ve left had “issues” or “baggage.” That their perspective shouldn’t carry too much weight.

Which is HILARIOUS, because isn’t that exactly what candidates are up against? We dismiss the credibility of former employees when it threatens us, but we elevate the credibility of former managers when it suits us. If we expect candidates to prove they’re trustworthy, why aren’t we holding employers to the same standard?

Background Checks Have Entered the Chat

Background Checks would like a word, so naturally, the conversation shifted here.

The distinction matters. Background checks aren’t inherently useless, but they disproportionately harm marginalized candidates. Communities that are over-policed, particularly BIPOC communities, are more likely to have minor or outdated infractions flagged, even when they have no relevance to the job at hand, and a blanket background check becomes another tool of exclusion.

There are narrow cases where background checks are appropriate:

• Roles that involve working with vulnerable populations.

• Jobs requiring direct responsibility for large amounts of money or highly sensitive data.

• Positions where regulatory requirements mandate it.

Beyond that, background checks aren’t protecting anyone. They’re signalling distrust and creating unnecessary barriers to work.

The persistence of both references and background checks points to something deeper. They’re not really about insight; they’re about CYA (covering your ass). They give people the feeling that they’ve reduced risk because there’s a note in a file somewhere that says, We checked! We did everything we could to pick the RIGHT candidate!

Meanwhile, that reassurance comes at a cost, and one that is carried by candidates. They’re forced to burn social capital by asking colleagues to vouch for them in a process that doesn’t really matter. Survivors of toxic workplaces are forced to hand power back to people who harmed them. Candidates without long networks are shut out entirely. All in service of a practice that offers little more than confirmation bias.

Hiring doesn’t need reference checks to be effective, but it does require a willingness to trust candidates as the most reliable source of information about their own readiness.

Reference checks were never about objectivity.

If you want to reduce risk, strengthen your interviews. If you want to set people up for success, ask them what they need. If you truly want to make hiring more equitable, stop treating privilege as proof of potential. And if your entire hiring process depends on someone else’s word about the past, you’re not hiring for the future.

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Notes

1. M.A. McCarthy, “Reference Checks,” ResearchGate, February 2017, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/313972661_Reference_Checks.

2. S. D. Arvey, M. R. McKay, and M. L. Highhouse, “Reference Checking: A Field Study of Applicant Reactions and Compliance,” International Journal of Selection and Assessment 28, no. 3 (2020): 291–303, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ijsa.12243.

3. B. J. Hoffman, C. E. Lance, and D. J. Woehr, “Too Good to Be True? Reference Letters Influence HR Practitioners Despite Low Validity,” International Journal of Human Resource Management 34, no. 17 (2022): 3452–3478, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09585192.2022.2117563.