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Former HR person here. Dirty little secret is that the reference check is rarely as scary as it sounds. I would do it for everyone --and I do mean everyone -- because I hated the thought of some person shooting up the place and then it turning out I didn’t check any references. I understand not wanting to bother your references but I also want to encourage you to make recent contact with them and update them on what’s going on. I’ve talked to many references who didn’t know that they were going to be contacted or had a very vague memory of being asked to be used as a reference months and months ago and it was awkward. I think you’re turning CCOs into some sort of gods here and that’s not really reality. They're humans. If you know them well enough to use them as a reference you should know them well enough to know how they would react to a phone call. I wouldn’t recommend anybody who’s going to be a douche to a recruiter. Not a good look. Why not just tell them the truth: "Hey, I’m really excited about this job and moving forward in the process, but I really value my relationships with my references and their time and I need to know that we're at least in the ballpark on salary before moving forward. If you’re not comfortable giving me a number, can you give me a range?"
I generally think of background checks and reference checks as two different things. A background check is usually the company going through a third-party service that runs your name through several national databases to make sure you haven’t committed any major crimes, are authorized to work in the United States without needing visa sponsorship, basically all the high-level stuff to weed out dealbreakers and red flags. Usually education verification is a part of this. They don’t dive deep into your college experience but they do make sure that you attended the college you say you attended and that you graduated. They might also verify your past employers but it would usually just be job title and dates of employment, not commentary on your performance because that falls more under the domain of reference check. For a reference check, that can be almost anything. Some employers handle it entirely via email, others do Skype calls, or phone calls. Sometimes it’s just verifying dates of employment and title. Other times it’s in-depth questions about the person’s job performance. There is a widespread belief that reference checks put a company at risk illegally, so a lot of employers will not give you much beyond the standard info, even if the info is good. When you’re supplying your references, always make sure that you get permission to use them, that you tell them what you would like them to highlight about you, and that you get a good vibe from them that they’re going to say good things. If not, DO NOT use them. Keep in mind that a lot of people think that the reference has to be their direct boss. That’s not true. You can use someone that was your mentor at an organization that’s at a senior level, a peer, someone who does a similar job at another company, etc. There are a lot of ways to get around this if your current/old boss hates you or you don’t want them finding out. Sometimes companies will mandate that you use your current boss but you can always get around this by saying that you’re conducting your job search privately and don’t want them to know. This is very common and they should understand. Also keep in mind that a lot of companies don’t even bother checking references because it’s been shown to be ineffective way to vet people. People usually only supply references that will say good things about them so more and more companies are moving towards a more in-depth interview process combined with background checks instead.
Get the salary range first, OP. No need for a full background check if you have no intentions of accepting their offer.
Chief
I might not be getting it - why shouldn’t an agency be able to thoroughly check the background you gave them? Layoffs are super common in the industry - from what I understand, checking out your background is more about verifying you actually worked at each place
@CD OP any HR department that has ever spoken to legal would just simply confirm you worked for them for those dates and not say much more
OP, I don’t think your old CCOs will feel bothered when getting a call. It’s a tough time for the industry, everyone will be more understanding and generous with their time. Good luck to you!
Call me naive but I think that's more of a background check for red flags (i.e. fired for sexual harassment) than it is a search for leverage in negotiation. Maybe a fishy from HR can confirm?
Agencies (and client side) often do background checks as part of the hiring process, if you haven’t had a full background check done before that is more surprising to me than anything. Maybe what you’re seeing is them doing it themselves vs paying an outside company to do the digging?
Once you said holding company I actually felt a lot better. There’s a small place in LA here looking for a CD and they were playing all sorts of games with salary and tons of interviews, etc. Was going to toss up a warning flag.
They’re legally entitled to look into all of it to make sure you have no skeletons in your closet. In fact, the reference one is pretty standard.
However, you can always tell them no. Either they’ll terminate your interview-process, or they’ll bend and just give you an offer.
They can ask whatever they want but if a former agency gives info that in any way prevents you from getting the job, they can be sued for damages by you. That is why most agencies have a HR policy to only verify you worked there and your dates of hire. You can even state that all your previous agencies have that policy.
All it really means is that they’ve been burned in the past. If you have nothing to hide, what’s the problem!
Can you tell them that?
Yes, if you really want the job. Hiring odds are in the employer’s favor right now.
Culture check is it seems like an odd amount of time. Just a simple verification of its not.
You wouldn’t believe how much resume/portfolio fraud there is in our business. It’s rampant.
7 interviews and you don’t know the salary? Do you really want to work at a place like that? I understand if you’re unemployed right now you may not have a choice, so only you know how desperate you are (or not), but under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t move forward until they give me a range at least.