Do you ever feel like your job candidates are trying to pull the wool over your eyes? Are you having trouble discerning your next Superemployee from Joe Schmoe? There’s no need to tell you that many people can be less than truthful about the facts on their résumés. And the consequences for you are big if the person doesn’t work out and wastes your company’s time and money. Let me give you a free, tried-and-true trick to illuminate the truth in your future interviews…
The answer is TORC. It stands for Threat of Reference Check.
The TORC method calls for your job posting to state explicitly that, at some point during the interview process, the candidate will be asked to arrange phone calls with his or her past three managers.
It relies on three main concepts:
- Subpar candidates know they need not apply. Every alleged qualification that they listed on their resumes will be quickly undermined in the first minute of a phone call with a former manager. And those candidates know that three different managers will relay the deal-breaking themes of their shortcomings, even if the details may vary.
- Your future hire wants you to talk to his or her former boss. People who perform consistently well in their jobs have inherent validators who can speak to their work ethic, professional growth, and skill level. And guess what? More likely than not, those former managers will be willing to get on the phone to sing the praises of those people.
- Better candidates go into a now smaller application pool, saving you time and money in the search process. When bad candidates self-select themselves out of your hiring process, you stand to gain. Your search will be smoother, and you will arrive at a hire sooner.
You may be thinking, this sounds fine for the corporate world, but my mid-size industrial company does not have the bandwidth to make three reference checks per candidate. Don’t worry: TORC does the work for you. With higher quality applicants, instead of (virtually) shuffling through resumes, you will have the time to invest in getting the later parts of the process right. Xemplar can help you get there. Talk to a representative today.
Adam Himoff is President of Xemplar, an innovative recruiting and workforce solutions company that enables U.S. clients to beat the ‘skilled labor shortage’ and reliably source the high-value, high-skill employees they need to thrive. To learn more about Xemplar and to request a no-risk consultation for your business go to www.xemplar.com.
