u/No_Advertising5190

I posted recently about hiring software developers and got a lot of good feedback. One thing that came up a few times was that interviews and technical assessments are useful, but they still mostly show how someone performs in a short, artificial setting.

The harder stuff to judge seems to be reliability, ownership, communication, teamwork, how someone handles unclear requirements, etc. That kind of thing usually only shows up after actually working with someone for a while.

So I’m curious how people here think about reference checks.

Not the usual “yeah, they were great” reference call. More like a structured version where the candidate is involved, invites former managers or peers, and the questions are tied to the actual role. So instead of just asking “if they performed goodd, you’d get more context on how they worked together, what kind of projects they worked on, how reliable they were, how they communicated, what they actually owned, where they struggled, and so on.

The hiring team would then get a short structured summary instead of random notes from a call.

Would something like that actually save time or improve the signal in your hiring process?

Or would you still prefer doing reference calls manually because the live conversation gives you better context?

Also curious where you’d see the biggest risks. Bias, legal issues, candidates only choosing friendly references, or maybe something else?

I've been doing a bit of hiring lately and the whole process kinda feels broken.
CVs are always perfectly polished, LinkedIn doesn't really tell you anything about how someone actually performs, and interviews are basically just a test of who can be charming for 30 minutes. The most confident guy who presents himself well gets the job, even if he turns out to be useless at the actual work.
Then there's reference checks. Completely pointless in my opinion. The candidate picks their own references so of course everything is always great. The only way you actually get real info is if you randomly know someone who worked with them, but that's just luck.
And employment references don't help either, at least where I live they basically have to be positive by law so they tell you nothing.
Feels like my company is just burning money every time we hire someone who interviewed well but can't actually do the job.
Are we all just accepting that hiring is a coin flip and using probation as the real interview?

I've been doing a bit of hiring lately and the whole process kinda feels broken.
CVs are always perfectly polished, LinkedIn doesn't really tell you anything about how someone actually performs, and interviews are basically just a test of who can be charming for 30 minutes. The most confident guy who presents himself well gets the job, even if he turns out to be useless at the actual work.
Then there's reference checks. Completely pointless in my opinion. The candidate picks their own references so of course everything is always great. The only way you actually get real info is if you randomly know someone who worked with them, but that's just luck.
And employment references don't help either, at least where I live they basically have to be positive by law so they tell you nothing.
Feels like my company is just burning money every time we hire someone who interviewed well but can't actually do the job.
Are we all just accepting that hiring is a coin flip and using probation as the real interview?
Im hiring software developer

I've been doing a bit of hiring lately and the whole process kinda feels broken.

CVs are always perfectly polished, LinkedIn doesn't really tell you anything about how someone actually performs, and interviews are basically just a test of who can be charming for 30 minutes. The most confident guy who presents himself well gets the job, even if he turns out to be useless at the actual work.

Then there's reference checks. Completely pointless in my opinion. The candidate picks their own references so of course everything is always great. The only way you actually get real info is if you randomly know someone who worked with them, but that's just luck.

And employment references don't help either, at least where I live they basically have to be positive by law so they tell you nothing.

Feels like my company is just burning money every time we hire someone who interviewed well but can't actually do the job.

Are we all just accepting that hiring is a coin flip and using probation as the real interview?

I've been doing a bit of hiring lately and the whole process kinda feels broken.

CVs are always perfectly polished, LinkedIn doesn't really tell you anything about how someone actually performs, and interviews are basically just a test of who can be charming for 30 minutes. The most confident guy who presents himself well gets the job, even if he turns out to be useless at the actual work.

Then there's reference checks. Completely pointless in my opinion. The candidate picks their own references so of course everything is always great. The only way you actually get real info is if you randomly know someone who worked with them, but that's just luck.

And employment references don't help either, at least where I live they basically have to be positive by law so they tell you nothing.

Feels like my company is just burning money every time we hire someone who interviewed well but can't actually do the job.

Are we all just accepting that hiring is a coin flip and using probation as the real interview?