Everyone knows the song and dance of filling out a job application or resume. You put all of your time and effort into getting all of your past work history and qualifications precisely documented on the application, but simply slap references on the end as an afterthought. Besides, they won’t really call them, right?

As it turns out, references are pretty important, especially for a hiring manager—it gives you a way to comb through the fluff that a potential candidate might’ve used to bolster their work image. And you should know how to ask the right questions of an advisor’s references!

Who are your references?

You’ve found the perfect candidate with the perfect resume. She’s up to date on her certification, she’s worked for clients who are in your industry and of comparable size, and she was an absolute delight to talk to in the interview. You know that her personality will mesh well with your team’s culture. At this point, checking all those references seems unnecessary, right?

Of course not. You can never be sure that advisors are everything they say they are. Take the time to research your prospective consultant. Look at her LinkedIn profile and read her endorsements. If the consultant’s company is a Salesforce partner, look it up on AppExchange and check out the rating. Go the extra mile and call those references. Here are just a few questions you can ask during those phone calls.

• What kind of work did the advisor do for you?
• How responsive was she? Did she work quickly or keep you up-to-date on her progress?
• How well did the advisor know the ins and outs of Salesforce? How often was she stumped?
• Was she accountable?
• Did she complete the work she was hired to do?
• Would you work with her again?

One of the strongest indicators of an advisor’s future work is the work she’s done in the past. Hopefully you like what you hear, and the reference’s endorsement supports everything the applicant has said.

You want to think the best of a candidate, but we all tend to embellish or even romanticize the work that we have done in the past. Use those references to your advantage and cross-reference what the advisor said about herself against the work that was actually done. Next, you’ll want to look into the candidate’s type of employment, and you’ll find information on that in our next blog in this series.