Trusted Referrers – How To Fix The Reference Process
I was working on a project recently and needed to find out if the prospective vendor could actually do the work. So, I did what everyone else does in a similar position, and asked for references. The references, as you would expect, were glowing. We were going to be working with a great company. I was fired up. Until we actually had to do real work. It turned out they were in way over their head, and could not pull the project off.
If you think about it, the reference process for prospective vendors and employees makes no sense. The company is not going to cough up clients who have had bad experiences. The prospective employee is not going to give you a reference who knows they smoke pot all day. This is especially true if you don’t know the person you are talking to. How do you know who to trust?
Finding Great People and Companies
I do a lot of work with developers from all over the world. I use a pretty rigorous process to figure out if they can cut the mustard. It includes, among other things, having them do test projects for me prior to being hired in any full-time capacity. The test projects will typically parallel what I need done on a real project, but with far less detail. What I am after in the process is usually to evaluate them on the following criteria:
- Can you read something that took me 10 minutes to write (tops) and create something real from it?
- Can you understand what I am saying, as well as what I am not saying?
- Can you make intelligent decisions when faced with unknowns?
- Can you organize your thoughts and ideas into a well-thought-out solution?
- Can you do it without asking me questions every 10 minutes?
For every ten people that say they can solve the problem how I want, I may find one that actually can.
Ask For Work Product
I am starting using a similar process in hiring companies to do work. It’s no longer enough for a company to assure me they have their act together. It’s no longer enough to have three random references assure me that they have their act together.
I am asking for test projects and prototypes that contain the hardest parts of the eventual solution demonstrated in working fashion. Then I typically will ask them to demonstrate it and change it on the fly. If they truly know their stuff, they welcome the challenge and love showing off. When I find a vendor that loves to show me how great they are and can do it with me firing questions at them in real time, I have someone worth working with.
If, however, they are insulted by the request, I tend to walk away or at least be much less favorable to using them.
A New System – Trusted Referrers
I have been thinking about a way of providing and looking up references along the lines of Stack Overflow. On Stack Overflow, users post questions and other users answer them. Everyone can rate both the question and all of the answers by +1 or -1. The best questions for a topic bubble to the top, and the best answers for a question bubble to the top. The users asking the best questions and providing the best answers get reputation in the network.
What if you applied this to getting references? What if the person providing the reference (either professional or personal) had something at stake in the process? If they provided a bad reference, their public reputation would be dinged. If what they say is accurate, their credibility is increased.
Participants in the system would be looked upon as “trusted referrers.” LinkedIn provides some of this with recommendations. However, it only really works if you know the person providing the recommendation. It doesn’t solve the problem of a reference from an unknown entity.
In my idea, users would know a person by their reputation, not just their personal connection.
I am still working through all of the details obviously, but I believe there is a way to apply the principles that work in other systems to references.
What do you think? Is there something already out there that solves this problem?