References vs. Background check (license, employment, degrees, interviews)

[goodlife36]

Do employers call references or do they contact H.R departments to verify employment? I do not recall any of my employers contacting my references but they did extensive background checks.

[toodamncold]

In my current situation, HR (although ready to throw out an offer) first contacted 2 of my references in managerial-type roles. Once that was done, the offer came the same day. Doing this verifies employment, character, and may unearth additional details at the same time. One of my own references (manager) were called, and another manager (different company, a reference which I did *not* provide) were called.

Once the offer was given, it was contingent on passing a full blown background check. This includes DMV, criminal, education, employment, etc and is done by a third party company. Takes 1-2 weeks.


For my last job, however, I required a special state license which required a much more thorough investigation done by state troopers/investigators. It included interviews, divulging detailed personal and financial data, and I even had to bring in all of my degrees from high school to graduate school. Yikes. Took upwards of 6 months.

[joe from dayton]

It depends on the employer, so yes, no, sometimes and it depends are pretty accurate answers.

[Rambler123]

A few points:

1) HR ONLY verifies employment - no references are given these days. In the cases of nearly all mid-sized and larger companies (at least here in America - I can't speak for other nations) HR will only verify the dates of employment. They aren't allowed to provide references since there's too much potential for legal situations to arise, such as a lawsuit because the company HR person didn't give a good recommendation, etc. Note that this is generally true of former managers, too. They are only allowed to give dates of employment and will often just refer callers to HR. If a manager is a reference, they may speak off the record about your performance, but it's really best to get some references who are not managers if possible because of the conflict of interest that could arise.

2) References are contacted for other reasons: References are usually contacted about quality of work and so forth, though they can often confirm at least general employment questions - they may not know how long you worked at a company, but they can at least provide general info - "Yeah, Bob was in the Product Development group for at least 5 years. He did a good job."

Good luck.

[goodlife36]

Originally Posted by Rambler123

A few points:

1) HR ONLY verifies employment - no references are given these days. In the cases of nearly all mid-sized and larger companies (at least here in America - I can't speak for other nations) HR will only verify the dates of employment. They aren't allowed to provide references since there's too much potential for legal situations to arise, such as a lawsuit because the company HR person didn't give a good recommendation, etc. Note that this is generally true of former managers, too. They are only allowed to give dates of employment and will often just refer callers to HR. If a manager is a reference, they may speak off the record about your performance, but it's really best to get some references who are not managers if possible because of the conflict of interest that could arise.

2) References are contacted for other reasons: References are usually contacted about quality of work and so forth, though they can often confirm at least general employment questions - they may not know how long you worked at a company, but they can at least provide general info - "Yeah, Bob was in the Product Development group for at least 5 years. He did a good job."

Good luck.

That is what I thought. I have filled some applications that request references but it seems they just verify dates. I read an article on monster.com about employers not giving recommendations because of fear of a law suit.