Most reference checks happen at the worst possible moment: after the team has already decided to hire. By that point everyone wants the call to go well, the candidate has handpicked people who adore them, and the recruiter is racing a start date. The result is a fifteen minute conversation that confirms a decision instead of testing it.
That does not mean reference checks are useless. It means most teams run them in a way that guarantees they learn nothing. With a few changes to how you set up the call and what you ask, references become one of the cheapest sources of real signal in your entire process.
Why Most Reference Calls Produce Nothing
References have every incentive to be positive. They agreed to take the call, they like the candidate, and they know their words could cost someone a job. Ask "Was Jordan a strong performer?" and you will hear yes almost every time, regardless of how Jordan actually performed.
Generic questions make this worse. "What are their strengths and weaknesses?" invites a rehearsed answer. "Would you hire them again?" gets a reflexive yes. If a question can be answered honestly without saying anything specific, a polite reference will do exactly that.
The goal is not to trick anyone into criticism. It is to ask questions where the honest answer contains detail, and detail is where the signal lives.
Set Up the Call So Honesty Is Easy
Before any questions, tell the reference two things. First, the candidate is far along and you are trying to set them up for success, not looking for reasons to reject them. Second, nothing they say will be quoted back to the candidate.
This reframing matters. A reference who believes they might sink the hire will stay vague. A reference who believes they are helping a future manager onboard someone well will talk openly about working style, support needs, and rough edges.
Timing matters too. Book twenty to thirty minutes on a call, not email. Written references are polished; spoken ones contain pauses, hedges, and asides, and those are often the most informative part.
Questions That Force Specifics
These questions work because they cannot be answered well with generalities.
"Can you walk me through a project where you saw their work up close?" This establishes whether the reference actually observed the candidate or just sat near them. Everything else in the call should be weighed against this answer.
"Compared to everyone you have seen in this role, roughly where would they rank?" Forced comparison is uncomfortable, which is exactly why it works. "Top half" and "one of the best two or three I have managed" are very different answers hiding behind the same smile.
"What kind of manager gets the best out of them, and what kind frustrates them?" Nobody thrives under every management style. This question assumes that, so answering it honestly does not feel like criticism. The answer tells you whether your actual manager is a fit.
"What was true about their best month, and what was true about their worst?" Peaks and dips reveal more than averages. Listen for what conditions produced each.
"If they joined us, what should their manager do in the first ninety days to help them succeed?" This is the polite channel for weaknesses. A reference who would never say "they struggle with ambiguity" will happily say "give them clear priorities early, they do their best work with a defined target."
"Is there anything I have not asked that you would want to know if you were hiring them?" End with this. Most calls produce nothing here; occasionally it produces the single most important sentence of the whole process.
How to Read the Answers
Listen for energy, not just content. References speak quickly and concretely about things they genuinely believe. When an answer suddenly goes abstract ("they were always very professional"), you have hit something worth a gentle follow-up.
Watch for the damning-with-faint-praise pattern. If you ask about impact and hear about attendance, attitude, or effort, the reference is telling you something without saying it.
Treat one lukewarm reference as a prompt, not a verdict. People have bad chapters, bad managers, and bad fits. If something concerning surfaces, ask the candidate about it directly and request one more reference from a different context. Patterns matter; single data points rarely do.
What to Skip
Skip questions the reference cannot answer well: exact revenue figures, precise dates, anything requiring records. Skip anything about protected characteristics, health, or family, which create legal risk and zero signal. And skip the ritual confirmation call where you verify title and dates in five minutes; your background check vendor already does that.
Also skip asking for references you do not intend to use. Candidates spend real social capital arranging these calls. If your process is going to ignore the answers, do not waste that capital.
Make It Part of the Decision
The biggest fix has nothing to do with question wording: run reference calls while the decision can still change. Schedule them alongside final interviews rather than after the offer conversation. Send a short written summary to the hiring manager, not a thumbs up emoji in a channel.
When references are done this way, they do two jobs at once. They occasionally catch a real problem before it becomes a bad hire. Far more often, they hand the new manager a head start: an honest picture of how this person works, what they need, and where they will shine. Either outcome pays for the thirty minutes many times over.