Why Reference Checks Should Not Stand Alone

Traditionally, Hiring Managers trusted reference checks alone to screen candidates and verify information. Anything that quantitatively validated a person’s background was not possible to attain or took so long to confirm that it prevented organisations from moving quickly on talent when they needed to. 


These days, technology allows access to a wide range of background checks that, combined with reference checks, form a comprehensive screening and compliance process that gives employers the power to make informed hiring decisions.  

 

There is a firm view that employment reference checks form the qualitative component of hiring for a role – illuminating a candidate’s strengths and weaknesses, culture fit, etc.  

 

Police Checks and other background checks for employment are used to quantitatively validate information, providing official and independently validated data about a candidate’s rights to work, criminal history or the attainment of a qualification.  

For most roles and industries, recruitment is a multi-step process. During the pandemic, employers learned the importance of efficient, robust systems and the need to adopt alternative methods in order to build accurate candidate profiles while hiring remotely.  

 

The WorkPro platform has developed a lot over the last 15 years, providing employers with an all-in-one dashboard to implement screening and compliance programs quickly and easily. 

 

WorkPro’s Reference Checks allow employers to access both quantitative and qualitative screening tasks – all from the one dashboard, with a single login. Not only can they request, track and manage the background checks needed to screen candidates for each industry and role, but perform reference checking too without needing to pick up the phone to obtain references or rely on another service.  

 

WorkPro Reference Checks provide an easy, fast and cost-effective service to complete the screening and compliance checklist. 

 

  • Fully automated and 100% online  
  • Easy to request from the WorkPro dashboard  
  • Customisable with pre-filled question templates  
  • Simple to track and manage with auto alerts  

Due to time constraints, in the past Hiring Managers had to choose between getting candidates through the door, ‘on the floor’ fast, or undertaking the right due diligence to make a smarter, more informed decision. The WorkPro platform provides the efficiencies and streamlined system for them to do both.  

 

A complete screening and compliance program looks different for every employer and industry. However, collecting both qualitative and quantitative information ensures they can assess more to make the right call on their next appointment.  

 

Reference checking should be undertaken and considered along with the right selection of background checks. Australian Police Checks are the most common and can be valuable when hiring for most roles and industries. 

 

This criminal record check uncovers a candidate’s disclosable court outcomes from official Government databases, revealing red flags that can affect employment. Law requires all workers to have legal rights to work in the country, therefore a Work Rights Check should be mandatory in almost every situation.  

 

These can be complemented with a financial credit check, Working with Children Check or Qualification Check to verify data that can affect a final hiring decision.  

 

WorkPro’s all-in-one platform provides one dashboard for employers to access reference checks as well as all of the above background checks including police checks for the ultimate convenience. Employers shouldn’t have to sacrifice risk management to hire new workers quickly – WorkPro has made sure of that.  


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