Reference Check 2.0: How Digital Social Networking is Transforming the Selection Process

Yves Lermusi

"Checkster stands for giving individuals and organizations tools that will help them recognize and grow their talent. Checkster aims to improve the world's productivity and harmony by increasing job fit and work achievement, as well as personal career satisfaction and fulfillment." Yves Lermusi

Welcome to an Inside Recruiting Channel podcast on TotalPicture Radio. This is Peter Clayton reporting. What can we learn from the two biggest Internet pure play successes to better manage our organizations? According to Yves Lermusi, the founder of Checkster, "Search and digital social networks are at the center of the Internet. There is much we learn from them to better run our organizations and only hire top performers."

In his book, Reference Check 2.0: How Digital Social Networking is Transforming the Selection Process (Amazon.com link), Yves shows what you can learn from these two core applications in order to transform your selection process and reach a higher level of hiring and internal promotion success.

Founded in 2006, Checkster is used by recruiters to automate reference checking and build talent pipelines, by HR and organizational development professionals to broaden 360 feedback, by job seekers to promote their accomplishments, and by top performers to leverage and promote their talent profiles.

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TotalPicture Radio: Yves Lermusi Transcript

Welcome to an Inside Recruiting Channel podcast on TotalPicture Radio. This is Peter Clayton reporting. What can we learn from the two biggest Internet pure play successes to better manage our organizations? According to Yves Lermusi, the founder of Checkster, "Search and digital social networks are at the center of the internet. There is much we learn from them to better run our organizations and only hire top performers."

In his book, Reference Check 2.0: How Digital Social Networking is Transforming the Selection Process, (Amazon affiliate link) Yves shows what you can learn from these two core applications in order to transform your selection process and reach a higher level of hiring and internal promotion success.

Founded in 2006, Checkster is used by recruiters to automate reference checking and build talent pipelines by HR and organizational development professionals to broaden 360 feedbacks, by jobseekers to promote their accomplishments, and by top performers to leverage and promote their talent profiles.

Peter: Well Yves, it’s terrific to have you back on Total Picture Radio. It’s been a couple of years. I think the last time you were on the show was at ERE Fall in Florida a couple of years ago.

So, what’s been going on with Checkster?

Yves: Checkster has been evolving very well. We have grown. Probably the most interesting thing has been the release of the book called Reference Check 2.0 that we did a couple of months ago.

Peter: Let’s talk about Reference Check 2.0: How Digital Social Networking is Transforming the Selection Process. You know, recruiters certainly will understand what all of this is about, but job seekers, this is a mystery. So, give us some background, Yves. Tell us how this whole thing came about?

Yves: Yes, what we have seen is that social networking is definitely evolving and taking the web over in terms of how people are interacting online. And so consequently, it’s becoming a new way and a new medium to enable new processes. And so what we have seen is that, and that’s why we called it Reference Check 2.0, it’s a new way to interact and to gather some assessments around candidate’s quality. And we often, I would say, contrast it with Reference Check 1.0 which is the traditional way to perform reference checking with telephone interviews and those types of things.

And so the Reference Check 2.0 is really more a digital way to do it, and so, consequently bringing not only better quality but also additional benefits for employers like branding and sourcing. And as you mentioned, there is also a definite value for job seekers in terms of really learning about themselves and having feedback on their quality and intrinsic value.

Peter: In your book, you talk about the fact that you use Google as algorithm. Can you kind of expand on that little bit and explain a little bit more about what Reference Check 2.0 really is all about?

Yves: Yes. The reference to Google algorithm, and actually social networking, when you look at the web today, there are really two huge success, we could say. One is Google and its algorithm that created such a success, and I’ll come back to that in a second, and the second one is really the social networking aspect. Those are the number one sites today in terms of visits. And those are really new enabler of interactions and how people interact. So when you combine those two together, it creates new possibilities and that’s essentially what Reference Check 2.0 is.

But let me explain specifically what the Google algorithm’s coming into the picture and how it is, and obviously it’s more explained in the book. In short, if you look at how Google that was a second rank search engine 10 years ago came to displace Yahoo, there is a number of reasons but one of the key reasons on top of usability is really the algorithm. And the algorithm, in short, was not something that was manually made, like a Yahoo was ranking the pages, but the page rank came from the number of links coming to that page. So each links acted a little bit like an endorsement for that page. So if you extrapolate that in terms of outside of page ranking and the search engines community or technology, it’s really the usage of collective intelligence or what is really called the wisdom of the crowd in terms of enabling, essentially, intelligence for assessing any other things and specifically, in the world of recruiting or talent acquisitions, is the quality of individual leveraging people around you or what we call collective intelligence.

So that’s essentially the essence of Reference Check 2.0, really leveraging the enabling possibility of social networking and the Google algorithm in terms of the collective intelligent that it represents.

Peter: And I would assume that, you know, from a job seekers’ standpoint, I mean I’ve talked to a number of recruiters who have found candidates that have actually landed jobs through things like LinkedIn groups. They go in there and they look for real subject matter experts, people who are passionate and very knowledgeable about their specific niche. I’m assuming that’s the kind of thing that you’re looking at with Reference Check 2.0 and the kinds of social networking that you guys index and go out and find these kinds of quality candidates and be able to check on someone’s background.

Yves: Yes. You see, the interesting thing is that typically when we speak today about social networking strategy and you do have many organizations now that just say look, we need our social networking strategy. We need to build there, etc. And what we’ve seen is that 99% of the time, what it means it’s a sourcing social networking strategy. So it means how can we use that to essentially replace our traditional sourcing methods to become more proactive searchers and those type of things, which is a good and fine methods. What we’re saying here is that social networking has more than one usage in terms of it’s not only sourcing method. And that’s why our subtitle of the book is really it is transforming the selection process. It’s enabling. It is not only to find people to a degree of separations to groups, to interest groups, to exchange like forum, etc, but it’s also enabling to assess the quality of those people.

Unfortunately, when you look back and when you ask yourself about the different sourcing methods, people are often speaking highly of referrals, so the ability when you refer someone with who you work. But rarely people ask themselves why is referral so good. Why is it working so well? And if you ask that questions, you will arrive to the answer, that it’s because it includes in the referral process an assessment – a peer rating assessment – which is one the most accurate assessments that is all there. And that’s essentially what a Reference Check 2.0 and what we did with Checkster is to make that more available to any recruiters out there to be able to assess people and not only use social networking for sourcing.

Peter: So explain to us, Yves, why recruiters or your clients would use Checkster 2.0 versus any of the standard credit rating agencies, and you know, the experience of the world to do background checks.

Yves: Great question. And there is often, I would say, first confusions that comes when people think about reference checking. They bundle that into the background check industry. Yes, background checking vendors have been typically providing a number of services including reference check.

Reference checking is really not about looking… often, I compare it to a red flag, green flag type of approach, if this person has a criminal background, red flag, etc. The reference checking is really way more about assessing the performance of an individual. So that’s not something which is different. Unfortunately, what we’ve seen is that, reference checking in its 1.0 version, the telephone approach etc., over the years, has quite of bad reputation when it’s done for the majority of individuals. Some people are still very good at performing them, but the majority of the case, they have a bad reputation. Why is that? It’s because most organizations today do have a legal department that tells them if someone calls to ask you for references, don’t say anything; you can just say date of employments, title, and that’s about it.

So consequently more and more when people are calling to get those feedback on someone’s performance, they don’t get much. Moreover often, you see it’s really time consuming and that creates an atmosphere when it doesn’t give any value. I can give you anecdote.

A number of years ago, I was hiring someone and I just say you know what, I did all the things, the interview, and then I’ll go for the reference checking and I speak to this individual’s manager and of course, “I can’t say anything. We have restrictions in the company. We can’t say anything.” I tried by all means, but you can’t still tell me after 10 minutes I went nowhere. But I just say “Well, this guy seems to be genuine. I think I’ll hire him.” It was my worst hire ever. That was like a nightmare because, of course, people couldn’t speak and now I understood. The reason why he couldn’t speak is essentially because probably something happened. This guy was unethical and it was… I’ll spare you the detail.

But often, when we speak to recruiters and talent acquisition departments, people just say yes but maybe sometime we can guess with the tone of the voice, etc. And we really see that it doesn’t work that well and my experience could be an unfortunate one.

To the point that I often say to those organizations I just say, “If you use the traditional methods and don’t spend the time to do it very well, I would say stop doing it or migrate to a version, to our Reference Check 2 version.” Because the way it’s done today it’s literally a waste of time, and the tasks really for your listener that are head of talent acquisition department is to ask a question is when is the last time that you disregarded or didn’t hire someone because of a bad reference check. Most of the time – and I spoke to many departments – it’s essentially, the best I had was like one or two over the last five years, and it was a company hiring thousands of people.

So essentially, they’re going through the motions to try to avoid to be seen as a negligent hiring organization. They are not really revisiting the core value of what is delivering.

To answer your question why people are essentially considering migrating to a Version 2 of reference checking is because of the lack of results with the traditional versions. And when they move obviously to a Version 2 and when they see the results, that’s obviously very easy to migrate.

Peter: To your point, Yves, if someone is putting out a resume with references on it, they obviously know that those references they’re providing to a hiring manager are going to speak very highly of them or they wouldn’t have them on the resume.

Yves: You see, that’s correct. What we have looked at is, we did a survey, which is in the book, of 154 practitioners that have done reference checking to traditional way for a number of years. And what we have seen is that it is a time consuming process. Typically, it takes about 76 minutes to perform and to get 2.4 references on average per candidates. That’s an average, so it could be way more for some type of jobs, etc. But what is striking is that they reach just about two people – two references. And when it is at that level, of course, you will only give your best friends. You see, you will try to control those way more.

One of the great learning of doing that digitally leveraging social networking and the digital approach is that the number of references explode. And that was really a very interesting experience. Just to give you some numbers – to the average across all over customers used to get six references when it’s done digitally. And sometime we do get to see 10, 20, 25 references that are invited. It’s amazing how many people. But what it means is that when you ask for that many references, it’s becoming harder and harder to control what they are saying. Moreover, when it’s done digitally in that fashion, it’s also confidential. So people cannot essentially be identified specifically and so consequently, they typically give better candid feedback.

Peter: That’s really interesting. How does your product actually work? Is there a dashboard? Let’s say I use your product and I’m sitting and I’m looking at a resume of someone an iPhone app developer, on paper, looks really great and I want to do a reference check using Checkster 2.0. Can you walk me through the process of how this whole thing works?

Yves: Yeah. It’s actually extremely simple. Obviously you need to create an account with us, but let us assume that you have an account and that you are using your product. What you need to do – it’s literally like you probably have been using Evite when you want to invite people for parties or inviting people on LinkedIn, or those type of things. It’s as simple as that.

What you will do is simply enter the details of the individual and click send. We often call it at Checkster the 2-minute process. It’s really truly take one or two minute, if you’re not logged in, and essentially send the invite to that individual.

So what will happen is that the candidates will receive, and typically it’s used on the final list like an assessment. This candidate will receive an email invitation from you and from there, it will trigger the process. They will start to invite their own references, so they don’t have to send them back to you and you start calling, etc. The system handle all of this. So the system will then invite those references, and as mentioned they invite way more than they have done, if it’s done over the phone. And so those people will then, in turn, answer online and then you will have a copy of the report that is very professionally presented and that what we’ve heard from our users typically, they like to share that with their hiring managers not only to help them to recruit that person or to interview that person, especially if they are doing behavioral type of interviews, but also to help to manage them because they really see it as a first performance review. As there are many similarities between what we do on the Reference Check and 360 feedback approach that we also provide, but those approach makes that the managers receive something from the recruiter that looks very professional, very detailed, with ratings and so they can really assess the individual and or help them to manage it.

So overall, to use it and to start, as your question was asking, very simple. You simply enter typically first name, last name, email job requisition – if you have one – click next, and the process started.

Peter: Let’s flip the coin, Yves. Tell me if I am a job candidate and received one of your Checkster invitations, what are some tips that you could give me how to successfully go about accomplishing this?

Yves: Good question. Because obviously you see, this is a two-handed approach. The system is handling a fair amount but also the job seeker has more control and more, I would say, visibility in what’s happening.

As you know, organizations are relying on many types of assessing or assessment methods from, you see, structure interview, etc., and we can go back into this if you like. But one of them, if they’re serious about hiring, is definitely assessing what references are saying about you.

The approach if you’re a job seeker and you’re looking about using this is first, make sure that you are inviting who the employer asked you to invite. Typically, they will say look, we want at least, for instance, three of your past supervisors. Make sure that you include those people into the number of raters or references that are invited. You see, they will ask you for a number of people on top of those. Make sure you invite those. Make sure, as well, that those people expect email coming from you and that they will respond timely. Also, you see, it doesn’t really help a lot to try to game the system. And there are number of control actually on the system that if you try to game the system, it will actually not work on your favor.

I would say this is a tool really to help organizations and individuals to get a better view of who they are. And more importantly from a job seeker standpoint, and we have offered that to a number of customers, is the ability to offer job seekers the possibility to also take a self-assessment during the process and they will receive a 360. That helps organizations to play from a branding perspective to receive something from the process of recruitments. You know, like me, that often you hear job seekers complaining about the fact that they don’t receive anything. In this case, they will receive a lot. And that’s really one of the drawbacks of what organizations have been doing in the recruiting process is that they don’t take into account the job seeker enough. In this case, they will receive a copy if the company elect to do – a copy of a 360 report that they can, in turn, learn a lot from them, and also use it for potentially growing their career and/or looking for jobs.

Peter: I think that’s fantastic and you’re absolutely right. I mean, the biggest complaint I get from job seekers is they spend all of this time submitting their resume online and doing all the stuff and they never hear anything back. It’s just so frustrating.

I think what you’re providing is a terrific service and it’s a great way for the organization, I think, who is engaging this candidate to really stand out and let’s face it, we’re all consumers. So if you’re a consumer-based company, it’s to your benefit to put out a good profile and act like you care about the people who are applying for jobs with you.

Yves: And, you see, just like a couple of weeks ago, I was speaking with the customer and he was telling me, just when is the last time you have job seekers that are really positive about the experience they had and what they receive back. He was saying essentially all of their new hires that were coming in and that receive that report were really, really pumped up and really positive. At the same time, it creates a kind of a speaking ground between them and the managers as the managers really see that as a first performance review and then they can discuss, etc. So it gives great feedback.

Often, I think, the analogy of just saying one of the drawback or the limits that job seekers have is the fact that they don’t often have deep intimate knowledge of their core strength. And that’s the typical image that you do have of American Idol that I often take when I go and speak at conferences is just to say you know what, something that is as public as singing and you see the first round all of those people that believe that they are a great singer and actually are not that great, how come they can mislead themselves so much?

And so essentially having the ability to see yourself in the true mirror and to give you feedback like a 360 fashion way and to learn through that process is actually a service that you give anyone. So, for job seekers we even offer the ability to do a simplified version on the website that they can even use on a free basis, just to make sure they know where they shine, they know where they’re good at. Obviously the flipside is organizations driving the process and doing the Reference Check 2.0 approach and/or a 360 approach.

Peter: Well, that’s fantastic. Yves, thanks so much for taking time to speak with us today on Total Picture Radio. And check out checkster.com and where you can learn more about what Checkster is all about and learn more about Reference Checks 2.0: How Digital Social Networking is Transforming the Selection Process.

Thanks, Yves.

Yves: Thank you very much, Peter.

We’ve been speaking with Yves Lermusi, the found of Checkster. We’d love to hear your thoughts and opinions on this podcast. Visit Yves’ feature page on the Inside Recruiting Channel of Total Picture Radio. That’s totalpicture.com to voice your opinion.

This is Peter Clayton reporting. Thank you for tuning in to the Total Picture Radio.

Yves Lermusi Biography
Yves Lermusi (aka Lermusiaux) is CEO & founder of Checkster. Checkster is a Career and Talent Checkup tool. Mr. Lermusi founded Checkster after seven years at Taleo (TLEO) as President of Taleo Research. Prior to Taleo, Mr. Lermusi founded iLogos (acquired by Taleo) and held several positions in research and consulting organizations in Europe. Mr. Lermusi is a well known public speaker and a Career and Talent industry commentator. He is often quoted in the leading business media worldwide, including Fortune, The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Business Week, and Time Magazine. His articles and commentary are published regularly in online publications and business magazines. Mr. Lermusi was named one of the "100 Most Influential People in the Recruiting Industry" and his blog has been recognized as the best third party blog. Mr. Lermusi earned a degree in Physics and Philosophy, and has a diploma in Economics from the University of Brussels and from the University of London. Mr. Lermusi currently lives in Mill Valley, California with his wife and three children.

Resources:
Checkster
Checkster Blog
Reference Check 2.0: How Digital Social Networking is Transforming the Selection Process

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