Eric Siu explains David Skok's extreme reference checking method: talk to six people about each candidate (two peers, two subordinates, two managers) to catch red flags like blowups and assess cultural fit. Have your recruiting team do the calls, not the hiring manager, to avoid bias.
Alright, so today we're going to talk about how to do reference checking the right way. So more specifically, this is known as extreme reference checking and this came from a venture capitalist named David Skok, that is S-K-O-K. Really recommend reading his blog, he's got a lot of cool things that he talks about and this one stuck with me throughout the years. This one's known as extreme reference checking. So when you're hiring people, the interview only says so much. I highly recommend running people through a test, maybe paying them for an assignment, see how they communicate, see if they can hit deadlines. Because some people are really good at interviewing, but they're not good at doing the work and vice versa, right? Some people don't know how to interview well, but they're amazing at doing the work. And even beyond that, what's more important is they got to be a culture fit too, are actually equally important, right? So when we think about it, reference checks used to be kind of like, oh, it's a foregone conclusion. We're going to hire these people and then, you know, that's it, right? It's almost like a, You know, it's not a very well thought through thing, and really it's on you to kind of, if you're a leader, to train your team and get your team to take it seriously. Because if they don't take it seriously, then you're gonna start to let in a bunch of bozos into your company, and you don't want to let that happen because, you know, at the end of the day, it's all about people. So if we take a look at my screen over here, we can see that these are— this is the template that we use. So when we do extreme reference checking, we think about 6 different types of people, right? So let's say we're hiring someone for a mid-senior level position, okay? So we want to talk to 2 of their peers, we want to talk to 2 people that were— that reported to them, and we want to talk to 2 managers as well. So we want to talk to 6 people. And if they can't pull up 6 people that will go to bat for them, you kind of have a problem there already, right? And so, you know, when you do reference checking, what you want to do is you want to dig deeper. So what What did they say in the interview that kind of sparked some red flags, or when they worked with you for a small test project, what didn't go so well, right? So you want to start to pull those things out, and you want to go deeper on them, right? And the point of the reference checks is to really see what this person is amazing at and what this person is not so good at, right? And you know, if there's any red flags, what you're also looking for is how excited is the reference about them? Because if they choose a couple references. And the references aren't excited about them, A, it shows that they don't know how to pick their references, and B, well, that means maybe they're not that exciting as a candidate, right? So, you got— because you're looking to hire A-players onto your team. And so, on my screen over here, once you get these people, so for example, sub means subordinate over here, and then over here means manager. So, you know, you get on the call and use a template like this. So, you know, you ask questions like, what's the relationship with the candidate? Did she— he or she resign or was asked to leave? What was his biggest mistake in the role, or his or her? And then everyone seems to see eye to eye, and is there anyone that he or she didn't see eye to eye with? Now, I've done these reference checks, and by the way, I got these from— I got these from that blog, and we've done these over the years, and we've done lots and lots of these, right? Only one time did someone ever, you know, get offended almost by our questions. So, what I would say is don't use my questions. I'm saying like, I don't want to take responsibility for that. What I will take responsibility for is telling you to, you know, take advantage of this extreme reference checking process, right? So, you come up with your own questions. I'm just giving you some examples right here. Why was he or she not promoted further in the previous role? And then on a scale of 1 to 10, how likely are you to recommend them? So, there's all these questions over here, right? But the key thing here is if someone says something, Such as, you know, they had— maybe once in a while they would have a blowup. So I'm trying to pull that up right now. There's actually a second here. Here we go. So, we've had blowups based on difference of opinion but it was never personal. So, okay, tell me more about that. Why was there a blowup? I mean, how is she when she blows up? Is it not that big of a deal? How was it, right? Because if someone blows up and it gets crazy in a company, like, that's not something we look for because— Even my management style, I don't really— I can get pretty stern and I can get pretty direct with people, but I don't yell at people, right? I think when you start to yell at people, that starts to tell people that it's okay to start to disrespect each other and do that type of stuff. And, you know, we're not trying to be a traditional agency world type of thing, right? That's just not interesting. And even like I've said before in other videos, the traditional agency model is just not that interesting to me. I think there's more that you can do with really good talent on your team. I think it's good to call out the good stuff, but I'm really looking for the stuff that kind of caught my eye during the interview. It's like, oh, you know, maybe this person that we interviewed, maybe she has a little bit of an edge. Okay, let's go a little deeper, right? What does a blowup look like? Okay, let's also talk about the good stuff. You know, maybe this person rallied for 2 days, rallied a team together and took a project from not so good to amazing, right? So, what does that mean? And was this 2 days working straight? What were the working conditions like? Because we obviously don't want our people overworking, right? So, there's a lot of considerations that go into this, and ideally what you want, the person doing the reference checks is not the hiring manager. You want the person that is probably on the talent side or someone that's helping on the recruiting side to do it, because they're gonna be the guardians of your culture, okay? The hiring manager is gonna be incentivized to push this person through, because they might have a big, a very big need, they needed to hire this role for a long time now, and they're just willing to put a butt in the seat. Right? But that's still not the right way. You got to think long-term here, and most people are not willing to think long-term, and that's why most people are most people. So extreme reference checking template. I think what's really important is that you— this is just one part of the hiring process, right? And if you want me to do more content like this around hiring, let me know in the comments below. And before we go, go to levelingup.com, learn more about my book Leveling Up. All right, and we will catch you later.
