The reference check is a critical late phase of the interview process
Reference checks are the best way to confirm the patterns of performance you’ve identified in a candidate. - Topgrading
For most lead engineer positions, with an unknown entity for a candidate, it’s probably a mistake to skip this step. The Topgrading advocates make the interesting suggestion to decide yourself which references to contact, and perhaps even ask the candidate to set up the conversation. Don’t be afraid to use weekends, when it may be easier to reach the reference.
A First Round Review article reports that Thumbtack CEO Marco Zappacosta is a firm believer in running the reference check process in parallel with the interview:
Zappacosta gives notice that he’ll start asking people about them in parallel as they move on in the interview process. “There are two important parts to this approach. First, I’m upfront about it and we take care to manage sensitivities with their current employer and a candidate’s timeline. Second, I don’t ask for references,” says Zappacosta. “I tell them that I’ll reach out to various people. The best answer? ‘Awesome. Talk to everybody.’ Zappacosta then talks to not two or three references but 10 to 20 people that he draws from various stages of the executive’s career. Historically, he's spent as much time on interviews as he does with references. So if he’s spent 15 hours with a candidate, he’ll spend the same amount of time backchanneling. “You want a holistic view, so you look to talk to peers, managers, and reports from the most important years in their career. I’m looking to learn exactly what they uniquely contributed and how well they worked with others,” he says. - First Round Review on Marco Zappacosta
Though it requires some patience in schedule coordination, this is a great practice that will lead to a much more informed hiring decision than any number of coding quizzes. Do your research into how past project successes came to be, what drives your candidate, and assess how tendencies and traits could play out in your own organization if you were to make the hire.
Finally, you may appreciate the value of a final conversation with the candidate afterwards.
You should talk with the applicant again after you have checked his references, because you may have gotten some new perspectives. - Andy Grove, High Output Management
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