Honestly neither direction really makes sense. You’d have to be one hell of a bad candidate not to be able to come up with three people that will positively talk about you. Likewise it would have to be an incredibly s*** job for them not to be able to find three people in the company that wouldn’t speak well to it.
The whole point of references is absolutely ridiculous.
Just bring them in for half a day, spend half the time figuring out if they can do the job, spend the other half the time having them mingle with everyone. Women, men, straight, LHBTQ+. Take them out to lunch, make sure you have some people there that aren’t super thick-skinned in the crowd.
If a decent sized crew of your people can’t figure out if they’re an asshole in 4 hours chances are they’re not an asshole.
The beautiful thing is: that half a day works in 2 directions.
At my company, we also like to let the person get to know 2 or 3 teams that could all use a new co-worker. As a result, the new hire can also request the team if they had a preference.
Honestly neither direction really makes sense. You’d have to be one hell of a bad candidate not to be able to come up with three people that will positively talk about you. Likewise it would have to be an incredibly s*** job for them not to be able to find three people in the company that wouldn’t speak well to it.
The whole point of references is absolutely ridiculous.
Just bring them in for half a day, spend half the time figuring out if they can do the job, spend the other half the time having them mingle with everyone. Women, men, straight, LHBTQ+. Take them out to lunch, make sure you have some people there that aren’t super thick-skinned in the crowd.
If a decent sized crew of your people can’t figure out if they’re an asshole in 4 hours chances are they’re not an asshole.
The beautiful thing is: that half a day works in 2 directions.
At my company, we also like to let the person get to know 2 or 3 teams that could all use a new co-worker. As a result, the new hire can also request the team if they had a preference.