References

You should do them!

The founders we've worked with that are best at early-stage recruiting make instinctive decisions with a strong bias towards collecting as much information as possible. The expensive way to do this is for you (or an investor, or angel) to personally spend time with the candidate. The cheap way to do this is ask someone who's worked with them for a long time what makes them great.>

The best rule of thumb I've heard for how many references to do is to continue doing them until you're no longer surprised by the answers (thanks to Pat Grady).

Here's a rough set of what we often ask:

• background on the referee
• background on the relationship between the referee and candidate
• biggest win & what specifically they contributed
• biggest mistake & how they handled it
• stack rank in peer group — top 10%? 5%? 1%?
• what would the most negative view of them be from someone in organization?
• what's the highest likelihood reason the hire wouldn't work?

Some founders I've worked with worry that every reference is a “boy scout” reference, where the answer to every question will only ever be positive. In my experience, people with high bars for talent pride themselves on demonstrating that they have a discerning eye and will give you honest answers more often than not. Asking questions that don't have “yes or no” answers helps — even great people have someone who doesn't think they're all that.