This week on T3 I review the reference checking technology start-up day100. day100 is an automated reference checking, candidate selection technology that uses a candidate-driven process to get fast and accurate results of who the candidate truly is with virtually no effort from your talent acquisition team. The name came from your desire to be able to tell how a candidate would be on day 100 in your environment before you actually hire them.

Here’s what I know from 20 plus years of working in talent acquisition. Reference checking, as we know it, is dead, or should be dead because it’s worthless! The majority of organizations still check references by asking the candidate for references, then either calling or sending these references, who are most likely the candidate’s Mom’s best friend, their Dad’s golf buddy and their second-grade teacher, to answer questions that are all subjective.

“Is Timmy a go-getter?” “Would you hire Timmy to work for you again?” “Does Timmy have high energy?” Or other questions, all of which will come back sounding like Timmy is the second coming of Christ.  I always ask TA leaders who tell me they still check references, when was the last time you didn’t hire someone based on their references? Give me one example in the past year. No one ever can! Ever!

Current reference checking is a complete waste of time and resources and shouldn’t be done if you do them like I laid out above. This is why technology, like Day100, is changing the entire game of candidate reference checking.  Automated reference checking, which is asking predictive behavioral based questions, in which the referee can’t give a positive answer over another, are the way to go. Here’s an example of what it might look like:

On a scale of the candidate prefers a “quiet, laid back atmosphere” to “loud, my hair is on fire atmosphere” which environment would this person work best in? 

Then you have four choices so the person is forced to select where they believe this person leans in the preference. This is just a simple example, day100’s algorithm is much more scientifically based than this, but you get the idea.

5 Things I like about day100: 

1. day100 helps you select the best candidate for the position by ranking them compared to what you said you’re looking for in the position and your corporate culture. You upload your job posting and candidates and day100 takes the process from there delivering you back a stacked ranked list of your candidates who would be the best fit for the position, with completed references.

2. Candidate driven process is one good way to also pre-close candidates on if they’re serious about the position and about your organization. If they don’t complete their end of the process, they don’t move on.

3. The process is designed to get references early in the process, not late, which saves time in closing when making offers. About 90% of referees have responded in 48 hours and the response rate of the references in beta is running around 75%.

4. The reference check portion for those completing takes about 10 minutes to complete on average and is a combination of multi-choice and opened ended information. The platform is very user-friendly and easy for those using to quickly click through to complete the reference.

5. day100 delivers you great visuals to be able to share and use with hiring managers to debrief on a list of candidates to make decisions on next steps.

I’m in love with automated reference checking technology. day100 goes a little bit beyond just reference checking and actually gives you some ranking recommendations as well, comparing all your candidates against each other to the actual job. Well worth a look, plus if you want to try it out they’ll give you their upgraded version free for a month to try it out.

T3 – Talent Tech Tuesday – 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 T3 – send me a note.