This week on the Weekly Dose I review the automated reference checking platform Xref. Xref is a fully automated solution that turns a slow and inconsistent task into an efficient and valuable stage of the recruitment journey.
Answer the following question: Does your organization check references?
SHRM’s recent survey showed that 89% of organizations still check references of candidates before offer of employment. The majority of those are still manually doing reference checks.
Xref is a technology platform that gets 98% of your candidate’s references with just a fraction of the current work you’re doing in your hire process. The Xref process is a simple message sent directly to your candidates and it puts the candidate in control of obtaining those references by inputting the references and having a message come directly from the candidate to their professional references.
Answer me one more question: When was the last time you didn’t hire a candidate based on a bad reference?
What I find is most organizations struggle to answer that question because it happens so infrequently. What I love about automated references is the normal rate of false offers is 8-14%. This happens because when a reference gets the chance to answer questions on the platform they are more open to give information than during a live conversation.
What I like about Xref:
- Tailored questions based on
role that are easy to change and customize, at the same time can be used right out of the box. - A dashboard shows you every candidate and exactly where they are in the process in great detail from where the candidate is in gaining these references, but also where the references are in responding.
- Mobile optimized. 55-60% of references are actually completed on a mobile device. This is how all of us would probably do this in our busy lives.
- Candidates also have a view to see where their own references are in the process, so they can nudge the folks who are dragging their feet.
- Nurturing effect of sending polite reminders to move the process along quickly. Most references are completed within 24 hours!
- Shows how a reference assessed based on others in the same level of position within your own environment.
I’m a giant fan of this technology as I see so much capacity being lost in organizations that are still manually checking references and getting really nothing to show for it in terms of hiring better talent. Well worth a demo, automated reference checking technology is one of the highest ROIs you’ll get in the TA technology space.
The Weekly Dose – is a weekly series here at The Project to educate and inform everyone who stops by on a daily/weekly basis on some great recruiting and sourcing technologies that are on the market. None of the companies who I highlight are paying me for this promotion. There are so many really cool things going on in the tech space and I wanted to educate myself and share what I find. If you want to be on The Weekly Dose – just send me a note – timsackett@comcast.net
Want help with your HR & TA Tech company – send me a message about my HR Tech Advisory Board experience.
Xref is bullshit. It takes no account of the reality of working people.
An organization that we are working is asking for referees in leadership positions for large healthcare organizations, and expects them to fill out a nondescript form with 24 hrs notice? Completely unrealistic and an extremely poor user experience.
This is a tool which is simply not being employed properly by HR teams and is used to simply disengage and rush people through the hiring process with unrealistic expectations because hooray automation – must be better. Certain things don’t scale and intrinsically human interactions are one of them.