Reference checks are an essential step in your hiring process. As someone who has conducted a significant number of them in my career, I know they can be extremely time consuming and don’t always yield the most insightful information.
However, reference checks have the potential to provide you with some of the most critical, timely, and valuable information you could ask for: actually knowing how a candidate has performed on the job. Certainly, past performance is a strong predictor of future performance. But simply verifying employment dates and asking superficial questions will typically leave you in the cold. You need to make sure that you ask the right questions.
Read more about How to Get More from a Reference Check
Reference checks are an essential step in your 
After being stripped of seven Tour de France titles and an Olympic bronze medal, Lance Armstrong finally came clean about his use of banned performance-enhancing drugs. It seems that cheating, and then lying about the cheating, is becoming more widespread in sports, especially when the stakes are high. For example, some of the best baseball players of all time (e.g., Pete Rose, Barry Bonds, Mark McGuire) will likely never be inducted into baseball’s Hall of Fame because of their scandals.
On October 28, 1992, John Otero went into a Wal-Mart store in Las Cruces, New Mexico to interview for a job as a receiving clerk. During that interview, he was asked the question, “What current or past medical problems might limit your ability to do a job?” Unbeknownst to the interviewer, Otero had been injured in an automobile accident a few years before causing his right arm to be amputated below the elbow. 
Although social media is often part of a job-seeker’s marketing plan these days, resumes and cover letters are still the primary elements that recruiters and hiring managers look at to get an initial impression of candidates. 
Don’t miss a step during your interview process. Here is a checklist to help you and your candidates have a seamless and consistent experience.
As the teacher recruitment season begins, school districts begin looking to fill vacancies created by retirements and resignations. This process is one that takes up much of the spring and continues into the summer months. Finding the right candidate is particularly important because teachers work with children and shape their lives. 
