

Hiring Secret: Best Way to Vet a Candidate - riffraff
http://www.inc.com/brian-halligan/hiring-process-vet-a-candidate.html

======
nhashem
You can't be a software engineer for long without working in some shitty
environments filled with TPS reports, dysfunctional management, and clueless
executives. It's especially discouraging when you're formerly thriving company
starts devolving into this said mess, usually when it fails to manage its
growth appropriately ("production went down! no more production logins for
anyone except our horribly understaffed sysadmin staff!") or when its core
product starts showing its age ("we're going to pivot! to high growth markets!
best in class! jack dorsey! jack dorsey!")

Not all of us handle this well, and I don't know about everyone else, but I
have at least one job in my past that I left with some burned bridges. The
idea of interviewing for a job and having my potential new employer calling
the Bill Lumbergh-equivalent whom I eventually lost my shit about and publicly
chewed out for being a moron, for an opinion about me, literally puts me in a
cold sweat.

So this article would worry me, but I've seen it in practice a few times,
since the Los Angeles tech scene is small enough that a lot of people have at
least one stint at a small set of companies (e.g. Yahoo, MySpace,
PriceGrabber, Citygrid, etc). Usually it's not quite so deliberate as the
article paints of stalking mutual connections on LinkedIn. The typical
scenario is someone on another engineering team asking, "hey I'm interviewing
X, did you work with him when you were at Y company?" and I'll say, "yeah, he
was really badass" or some equivalent. Even if I don't have a great opinion of
him, it's usually something like, "Well I think he got let go when they did
layoffs in 2009, but his manager was a dick so who knows."

Software engineering one of the few meritocracies left. If your quality of
your work is good and you're respected by your peers, then Bill Lumbergh's
opinion of you probably doesn't matter. And if it does, it's probably not a
place you want to work at anyway.

~~~
hboon
Can you elaborate on the Jack Dorsey reference?

------
tokenadult
I guess it's important to be a contrarian in this thread. I am a lawyer
(although I acknowledge I have practiced very little in employment law), and
to the best of my knowledge and belief, the practice described in the article
is legal in the majority of states of the United States and perhaps in plenty
of other places. I suppose it's more of a matter of opinion whether asking
someone whom you didn't name specifically on your application as a reference
is "ethical" or not, but it's simply a matter of fact that your whole
reputation in the workplace may be of interest to the next person you work for
or work with. AFTER EDIT, ADDITION TO THIS PARAGRAPH: A reply posted as I was
replying helpfully refers to a website

[http://www.crimcheck.com/resources/job-reference-shield-
laws...](http://www.crimcheck.com/resources/job-reference-shield-laws.htm)

that summarizes some tips for employers about what they can say in response to
requests for reference checks. The short summary of the various state laws is
that employers can tell the truth. No employer may lie, but in general someone
who knows you through an employment relationship is permitted to truthfully
answer questions about your work, and you have no legal ground to sue the
person who answers reference check questions (whose identity, as a practical
matter, is likely to remain unknown to you).

I'll give an example of the hiring practice of one large (137 million dollars
of revenue per year) organization in my town. The organization, which happens
to be my friendly local public school district, has for more than a decade
checked out candidates to be district superintendent by having resume-checkers
telephone the references listed on the candidates' applications. The
reference-checkers follow a protocol developed by a hiring practices
consultant to conduct the reference check, and one question on the protocol is
"Do you know anyone else who knows this candidate?" That person will be
called, and the same question is asked, among all the other reference-checking
questions.

The school district chief personnel officer, in a report to the school board
just last month, mentioned that now a practice like this is followed for all
new hires of teachers in the school district. The goal is to talk to multiple
third-order references for each new person hired by the district. Going two
degrees of reference out from the original references, and asking the right
questions, does a lot to distinguish the best candidates for the job, in the
personnel director's opinion. The practice mentioned in the submitted article,
where the interviewer uses the candidate's self-disclosed social network
information to find second-degree and third-degree references, seems fully
legal and similarly likely to turn up more information about a candidate than
just contacting the references mentioned by the candidate.

The school district chief personnel officer noted that when teachers are
separated from our district's employment for poor performance, it is rare for
anyone ever to contact our district even to verify the barest details of the
teachers' job performance. So it appears that some organizations still don't
check references or employment history at all. That is the organizations'
choice, but it should hardly surprise a job candidate that some organizations
check work histories very carefully, especially for positions of great
responsibility like teaching young people. It is EXPENSIVE to make a hiring
mistake for any organization, so quite a lot of time and effort is justified
in making hiring decisions carefully.

In an earlier reply in another thread 58 days ago,

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3148100>

I linked to some external sources about legal reference-checking practices
that I'll post here again as information for fellow Hacker News participants:

[http://hiring.monster.com/hr/hr-best-practices/recruiting-
hi...](http://hiring.monster.com/hr/hr-best-practices/recruiting-hiring-
advice/job-screening-techniques/reference-checking-questions.aspx)

<http://www.drgnyc.com/list_serve/Jan24_2005.htm>

[http://www.acadweb.wwu.edu/hr/Employment/InfoForHiringOffici...](http://www.acadweb.wwu.edu/hr/Employment/InfoForHiringOfficials/HiringPersonnel/Exempt/TelephoneReferenceChecks.pdf)

[http://www.best-job-interview.com/reference-check-
questions....](http://www.best-job-interview.com/reference-check-
questions.html)

<http://www.k-state.edu/hr/employment/referencecheck.htm>

[http://pbsbo.ucsc.edu/personnel_payroll/staff/recruit/ref_ch...](http://pbsbo.ucsc.edu/personnel_payroll/staff/recruit/ref_check.html)

[http://www.bridgestar.org/Library/HiringToolkit/ReferenceChe...](http://www.bridgestar.org/Library/HiringToolkit/ReferenceCheck.aspx)

[http://jobsearch.about.com/od/referencesrecommendations/a/re...](http://jobsearch.about.com/od/referencesrecommendations/a/refercheck.htm)

------
patio11
This is not indicative of the type of employer-employee relationship I would
wish for, from either side of the table. You're presuming an _awful_ lot to
spend someone's social capital, without consent, _for the express purpose of
soliciting negative comments about them_.

Suppose a candidate did a reverse background check on Hubspot by cold-calling
an investor or customer, quietly, to solicit dirt on the company prior to
evaluating a job offer? That strikes me as either a) too socially unaware to
function as a professional or alternatively b) borderline sociopathic.

~~~
ghshephard
This is pretty standard practice in the valley, particularly if you are being
hired in anything more than an entry level position.

Nobody is going to be paid $140K+/year, and be trusted with access to the
source code tree, intellectual property, and possible exposure to customers on
the basis of 3-5 45 minute interviews and a few (supplied by the candidate)
reference checks.

You are going to be hired if (A) we already know you or (B) someone we know
can vouch for you that you've done good work for other companies.

Trying to hire on any other basis is just playing a crap shoot.

It's what I like to tell my employees - "None of you are working for this
company. You are all working for the _next_ company - and every decision and
action you take here, will reflect on whether your next employer will want to
hire you."

~~~
flomo
There's a huge difference between a personal voucher and a opinion randomly
solicited off LinkedIn. The latter might nix some candidates, but is probably
not very useful in determining the best ones.

------
jrockway
I love it when psychopaths write articles. They're being serious, but they
sound like they're writing an _Onion_ article! Hilarious and sad.

Anyway, this is why I never answer the phone. Nobody calls you because they
have something for you. They call you because they want something from you.
Why should I give you an honest review of my friend? If I lie and say he's a
10, my friend will like me more and I will have a laugh at your expense. If I
tell the truth, my friend will like me less and the end result will be having
no friends. Why would I do that just to save you, some douchebag I've never
met, some money? It just doesn't make sense.

~~~
praptak
This alone does not make the tactic invalid. A glowing review at least means
that the candidate was able to make friends which is still a plus in the
context of hiring.

The real danger is that the person you called is unethical and feels the need
to get even for things like the candidate having exposed their own
incompetence - clearly not a minus in the context of hiring.

------
acrum
Wow. This is horrible advice. I'm sure it works for the hiring company to get
a better picture of the candidate, but this is unethical and potentially
illegal in some states/countries. Legal issues are why many companies
recommend/require references in a specific format- 'this person worked here
from [date] to [date]', etc... devoid of any 'opinion' statements.

Here is a per-state summary of job reference shield laws (sorry, not sure how
current it is): [http://www.crimcheck.com/resources/job-reference-shield-
laws...](http://www.crimcheck.com/resources/job-reference-shield-laws.htm)

------
droithomme
Oh wow, these are helpful comments. I now realize the author is advocating
actually stalking down someone's personal acquaintances. Yeah, the
professional protocol here is contact the provided references only. Going
outside that and engaging in web stalking is a huge no no. If I found out
someone had done that to me, I would be extremely reticent to accept a
subsequent offer, it's a clear privacy violation. I would definitely be
wondering what other lines they would feel no hesitation in crossing.

------
laconian
Awful. This could destroy a company's hiring pipeline.

The cost of retaliation by a spurned candidate are HUGE. All it takes is a few
tweets or blog post about how company X is going to blow your cover during
your job hunt, and all the candidates that are currently employed will run to
the hills.

Has this guy ever _actually_ done this trick, or did he just have an idea in
the shower this morning?

------
brk
I think that one of the key things in the article that people a overlooking is
the part about finding someone that you and the candidate know in common. He's
not advocating just randomly calling people from the candidates LinkedIn
connections, but trying to find someone you both know in common that you could
speak to in confidence. My guess is the article got edited down a bit too much
and didn't make this key point clear enough.

FWIW to the people who are commenting that they are highly turned off by this
tactic... I know Brian Halligan and have worked with him twice (the last time
being at HubSpot), he's a very professional and ethical guy overall (IMO) and
I don't think he'd recommend doing something that put a candidates current
employment in jeopardy. He is also not the only person I know who uses this
approach. I've known several people to take this approach, and I've also
personally been contacted by people who trust me, in order for those folks to
get an unbiased back channel on candidates they were hiring.

~~~
kenjackson
It still doesn't make any sense. Just because Brian knows some person doesn't
mean he necessarily knows potential problems in mentioning the candidates name
(unless it's always Brian's BFF -- but I suspect it's really just some person
who Brian happened to have some degree of contact with in the past decade).

Why does this need to be blind at all? If there's someone that Brian would
like to talk to, just ask the candidate, "I saw from LinkedIn you know Sheila.
I'm good friends with Sheila. Would it be OK for me to contact her as a
reference, or would that pose any problem for you?"

And I think it's also on Brian's shoulders to make clear why Sheila provides
values. "Sheila is someone I've worked with in the past and value her
opinion." Brian should also give you the option of giving her heads up,
otherwise Sheila may view the cold-call from Brian as you dropping the ball.

All in all, just seems like a bad idea. And frankly, I'd really like to see
the data that shows he's gotten better hires from this.

~~~
brk
The interviewing process would usually flow along a line of screening out
candidates that are potential hires and THEN trolling their LinkedIn profiles
to see who you both know in common. I think it would be tiresome to do that
for EVERY candidate so that you can ask them during the interview "Mind if I
contact Foo.".

As long you apply a little discretion about it I don't see what the big deal
is. EG: don't contact someone at the candidates current company unless that
contact really IS you BFF and you know they can keep the conversation private.

Also, if you do get any odd reviews you'd probably also want to give the
candidate room to explain. I wouldn't have a big issue with someone contacting
random ex-coworkers of mine as references. There is one person in particular
though that probably wouldn't have good things to say, but digging further on
that guy you'd realize he's a complete nutjob. So, you'd just want to make
sure you properly tempered all the feedback, but in that scenario you _should_
see overall trends and be able to spot outliers.

I guess I'm also not highly opposed to this because I think most current
interview tactics suck as screening methods, and everyone hand-picks their
references anyway, so you kind of need to go out of band to get a really
reliable reference.

I'll also add that I think it depends somewhat on the level of person you're
hiring. I don't know if Halligan still personally interviews everyone coming
into HubSpot. If he does, I'm pretty sure he is not the one checking
references for a level-1 phone jockey. So, we're talking mostly about the
higher-order candidates, key individual contributors and managers that he's
doing this for. It just doesn't strike me as such a deplorable practice.

~~~
lusr
Unfortunately it's difficult to guarantee discretion - for all you know the
person you're contacting is the brother of the candidate's boss's girlfriend,
for instance.

Furthermore, in my experience, references like to know in advance that they
will be contacted: in my culture, any ethical reference is going to want to
know who's asking, why, and whether they have permission to speak on the
candidate's behalf.

Finally, there may be personal issues between the person you're contacting and
the candidate that would make the reference biased.

Ultimately it seems pretty straightforward and professional to simply ask the
candidate outright whether you can contact X, Y and Z as additional references
(unless you happen to know these people well enough that discretion is
relatively certain). At that point the candidate can say, "sure, but let me
speak to them first to see if they're OK with that", or perhaps "No, Bob stole
my wife from me and I hate that guy."

------
Stormbringer
This is interesting, but I keep seeing articles that reduce down to "kiss up
to everyone on LinkedIn or your career will suffer".

It is the Orwellian overtones implicit in these kind of glowing references for
LinkedIn that I find disturbing.

Oh yes, that and the fact that everyone who seems to be heavily into LinkedIn
is a colossal douchebag.

~~~
rachelbythebay
This seems like a good reason to (continue to) avoid LinkedIn.

------
charlieflowers
This doesn't seem like a very good way to hire a developer to me. Why not
actually ask them direct questions to find out if they can code? Why not look
at and talk through some code they have written, or even ask them to write
some code there and then discuss it?

Why go through all the levels of indirection of a LinkedIn search and then
sift through hearsay? Why assume that the one or two people you talk to
actually know what they're talking about? You haven't even vetted the
candidate, so you're going to put blind faith in the two strangers you find
via LinkedIn? What if they are not very good, or have poor judgement, or what
if they hate your candidate because he was really good and they weren't (or
for any other irrational reason)?

I'm not trying to be rude, and maybe I'm missing something brilliant here ...
but I just don't see any "secret sauce" here.

~~~
jcc80
Given he is the CEO, I think he's making many more non-technical hires such as
Operations, Sales and Marketing folk. The secret sauce is that he's getting
info that the candidate hasn't presented himself or hasn't cherry picked
people to provide on his behalf.

Of course, I have a major problem with it because it can "blow up someone's
spot" as they say - alerting people you may not want to know you're on the job
hunt (current employer/clients).

------
mrmekon
I've worked for the same small cluster of entrepreneurs, who are all very
close personal friends, for my entire career. If you cold called people I'm
professionally related to, and not on my list of references, then changes are
_very_ good that you're calling someone I currently work for or with. And
chances are very good that my employer will find out.

Now, I have an excellent relationship with my company's owners and would
certainly not get fired for such a thing, but others in my position might. And
regardless, that's not information that you have any business giving out to my
current employer. That's a discussion that must happen on my terms -- if my
boss found out that I was interviewing other companies from your sloppy hiring
practices, I would be _pissed_.

edit: Just realized that if you're going from LinkedIn contacts, you might be
calling one of my _current clients_. That would be absolutely disastrous for
myself and my employer -- yeah, go ahead and throw them under the bus by
instilling doubt in our customers, thanks.

------
slavak
I'm going with the majority opinion on this.

It's perfectly fine for you to look up my past work relationships for people
you know and trust for an objective opinion of my skills - but you damn well
better let me know and get my permissions before-hand. I'd like to know whom
of my associates you're calling and get their permissions for it beforehand.
Skipping this step is just an unbelievable dick move on your part and will
make me seriously reconsider working for you.

------
cypherpunks01
I'd personally be a bit surprised if a friend who I hadn't listed on a job
application was randomly contacted by a potential employer.

Has this happened to any of you? It doesn't seem unethical but is definitely a
little sneaky.

~~~
kenjackson
That is completely unethical. So unethical that I'd go out of my way to let
people know about this company.

The job search should be at least semi-private. My LinkedIn network are work
connections. If I'm leaving my current employer the last thing I want is for
someone to contact my manager's best friend or a customer that my current
employer is trying to close a deal with ("Oh Ken's leaving? Why? What's wrong
with the company? Did he say?").

Especially in the valley, the circles are a lot tighter than you think -- and
if you're doing blind calls there's a good chance you just made my prospects
at my current job very uncomfortable.

This is a horrible practice and I'd say that I'd recommend to anyone to avoid
this place -- unless you're currently unemployed or just don't care.

Also, if someone cold called or emailed me about someone, the first thing I'd
do is contact the person in question and let them know someone was snooping
about them. I definitely would not answer any questions -- especially if I had
a high opinion of the person.

~~~
ams6110
Why are you publishing all your professional relationships to the world on
LinkedIn and then feeling like your privacy has been violated if someone
actually uses that information?

~~~
kenjackson
I publicly go to lunch with friends too -- so if you follow me to lunch and
then ask some of the people I went to lunch with about how I'd be at this new
job --you're saying this is acceptable or simply a natural consequence of
going out in public with people?

The name of my child is public record too. So it's OK for you to go by his
school and ask his teacher how I am as a parent?

There's a lot of public information that exists. Those who have the inability
to recognize that there exists a line between simply unethical and illegal are
people I'd prefer not to associate with -- much less work for.

~~~
ams6110
I agree there's a line. Following me around yeah, that's over the line.

Using information I've published to the world on a website, I think is
probably not.

------
vectorpush
What if I don't want word getting around that I'm looking for new work? This
seems creepy, especially because I don't really expect that this company would
disclose the fact that they are running unsolicited background checks to me.

------
apalmblad
I once reached out to someone I knew personally who wasn't as a reference, who
then told me that it was his understanding that contacting people for
references without the permission of your candidate is illegal. (I'm based in
Vancouver, BC, Canada) Can anyone with more knowledge comment further?

~~~
ig1
It almost certainly is illegal in Europe under a variety of different laws
ranging from data protection to breach of confidence.

The important takeaway here is that if you're going to do it you should clear
it with the candidate first.

------
ams6110
Best hires: people referred by current (good) employees.

Next best: people with good references.

If you have either of the above, you'd have to really blow the interview. I've
never done "blind" reference checks; it's surprising how many employers don't
check references at all and base everything on the interview and maybe a few
"gotcha" puzzles or coding tests.

------
jleader
I think people should be aware that this goes on, in the form of hiring
managers saying "this candidate worked at X, my buddy/coworker/neighbor worked
at X, I wonder what their opinion of this candidate is".

I would hope that people who do this only call people they know well and trust
to keep the discussion confidential (or at worst, tell the candidate "hey,
your prospective employer asked what I thought of you, they must be getting
serious about hiring you").

On the other hand, I agree that doing this kind of reference-seeking with
total strangers is really creepy, and stupid. If someone I didn't know called
me out of the blue this way, I'd definitely tell my friend "your prospective
employer called me, did you give my name as a reference?".

Still, the first kind of reference-checking is a good reason to do your best
to leave every job on good terms (not just with your boss, but with coworkers
as well), if at all possible. You never know who might talk to whom down the
road.

------
bchjam
I think if the company gives some notice that they're going to do this it
might be tolerable but in general it would seem like a huge disincentive to
work there. If the employer can't be straightforward with you at the very
beginning of your relationship, it's hard to imagine the situation improving
with time.

------
feverishaaron
Please correct me if I am wrong, but I believe responding to a guy like this
might put your company in legal jeopardy in relation to the former employee.

We have been explicitly told in the past that we cannot discuss former
employees' performance with interviewers who call for a reference. We can only
state that they were employed with us, and what specific job functions they
performed.

------
angelbob
Here's the next step in this arms race: cold-call people who know the
candidate and then lie about why you're asking. Then you don't necessarily get
"caught", and you don't say where you're calling from.

Lies that will potentially work here: "I'm doing a background check for a
security clearance". "I'm a private investigator checking out (some other
person or company)." "(Person) was supplied as a reference and I'm checking
their quality to see how seriously I should take it."

It may be a tough time to be a (real, actual) security clearance background
checker in a few years.

~~~
ktsmith
I've received a few calls asking for information to be confirmed during a
security clearance background check and each time I knew before hand that I
might receive the call. I would be highly suspicious of any call claiming to
be on that subject without the person in question notifying me before.

edit - I should also note that I don't give out information about anyone I
know without their prior consent so this wouldn't work anyway. I would also
notify the person about the snooping.

------
pan69
The opposite is also quite true: Best way to Vet a company. Find someone who
used to work there...

I always get sort of angry about the whole reference thing. It seems that
employers are entitled to reference checks but candidates somehow are not
allowed to reference check a company?

How many times have you heard the story of someone who got hired into a role
to find out on their first day that they are the 4th or so person in that role
in 5 months... It's OK for companies to lie, or not fully disclose the truth,
but oh boy, if a candidate's reference doesn't check out...

------
BrianHalligan
Hi folks. Sorry I haven't had a chance to respond. I've got some family in
town for the holidays and have been tied up.

I stick to the advice in the article. The one thing I didn't mention was that
I only do these references if the potential employee is cool with it. I ask
the potential employee if I may check blind references and 95% of the time,
they are cool with it...this happens toward the end of the process. Sometimes
when that employee is not leaving their current employer, they ask me to only
reach out to folks from their previous employers which is totally cool w/ me.

Once I get the green light, I go through my LinkedIn and find folks who I know
who have worked with the candidate -- Boston's a small town and I don't have
to look too far. I reach out and ask them about them. I must say, I do ask
some pretty "open" questions and leave the door wide open for someone to say
something negative about the person because I don't feel like a get a full
picture about the weaknesses from the "given" references.

I totally agree with those who say it is not cool to do this without the
employees consent.

I'll give you a case where this worked. Last month, we went through the
interview process with someone from Microsoft. The person did well on the
interviews (I've noticed that humans are getting better and better at
interviews over time) and it was time to do the blind refs. The candidate was
fine with us doing them. In this case, they were already out of Microsoft. I
happen to know a bunch of folks at Microsoft. I talked to them and they all
said the same basic things and were all pretty negative. We ended up passing.
Personally, I think we dodged a bullet there.

This method is one I learned from vc's. In our venture rounds, I give them 5-6
references to call for me. They usually call them, but spend the majority of
their time calling mutual connections that I didn't provide. Imho, this is
smart! ...There was one venture capitalist who I thought went a bit too far.
They called everyone they could find that had worked at HubSpot at one time,
but no longer did. That's not a long list, so all of those folks were calling
me asking, "Are you getting funded by ____."

------
ljf
What worries me is that people will see this on the front page, and as many
never read the comments here, will think that this is community supported
advice.

Luckily the facebook comments on the article are going a similar way as those
here, but I wonder is they carry as much weight as the community feeling in
this thread?

------
mynameishere
This is the method the government uses when investigating jobs requiring a
security clearance.

FYI.

~~~
sliverstorm
It's more reasonable when the security of the nation is at stake, rather than
a successful hire at a small company.

Safety of 300 million Americans > Hiring the right person for a company no
one's heard of.

------
mathattack
Great way to staff a project within a firm, but violates the confidence of a
job search. The only thing I think that might be ok is asking people within
your own firm who know them.

------
doktrin
I would like to add my voice to those who have noted that this is in fact poor
advice with potential legal consequences. This should not be on the front
page.

------
jebblue
LinkedIn is not a replacement for common sense.

------
janoulle
One way to thwart this: make your LinkedIn connections visible to you alone.
<http://min.us/mlinkedinconnections> (shared connections are not hidden).

~~~
amcintyre
Wouldn't that only thwart people that don't collect tons of connections? I
wonder how many connections a hiring manager would need in order to have a
decent chance of having at least one shared connection with a given candidate.

------
georgieporgie
See also: how to make sure that someone who had a horrible work environment
never, ever, finds a better one.

------
byrneseyeview
I am shocked that this isn't standard practice.

Last time I got a job offer, the first thing I did was call up two people
who'd sold their companies to that employer, one guy who worked there, one guy
who'd quit, and one who'd been offered another job and turned it down. Next
time I'll try the "scale of ten" trick, too.

All management positions are to some extent sales positions, and part of a
good sales technique is to shape the truth so the good parts are obvious and
the bad parts aren't. The more someone's naturally talented at this, the
easier it is for them to fudge the truth.

This is much easier to accept if you consider it in the other direction. Would
you really think it unethical to do this kind of due diligence on a
prospective employer? Would your boss find it creepy? I was open about it.

~~~
kenjackson
Your prospective employer doesn't have a job they can lose.

It's simply not a symmetric relationshop.

~~~
silentscope
I agree with kenjackson. Me checking on an employer is worlds away from an
employer coldcalling my contacts without informing me. A company isn't a
person so I can check on the company. A company checking on the applicant
without notifying them is a dealbreaker.

