The Problem

For the iMethods team, whose attention to detail and dedication to integrity-based recruiting has long put them in a class of their own compared to competitors, there was never any question that they would conduct reference checks to ensure candidate quality.

“We’ve always verified references,” said Nick Allen, “but we’ve done them manually on the phone. Evaluating candidates is important to the quality of the process and to our reputation, so we always pre-screen.”

iMethods was already fully bought into the incredible power of reference checks to ensure candidate quality, but this critical step in their process also helps recruiters cultivate meaningful relationships with those providing the references.

“When a reference giver flags something for us about a candidate,” said Allen, “it helps us know where to dig deeper. It helps us do our jobs better and do right by people.”

The issue that iMethods faced was less about the need for reference checks and more about the scale and speed with which they could be performed. With two recruiters’ worth of time being spent just on conducting manual reference checks, the company realized they needed to find a way to make this process more efficient.

“Calling people on the phone for reference checks is really a mixed bag,” said Allen, “because you never know how long it’ll take. Our turnaround time can be short, and we don’t always have the time to chase people down for a meaningful discussion. The reference check then becomes less about understanding the candidate’s qualifications and more about just making sure there are no huge red flags. And that’s leaving a lot of opportunity on the table.”

The Result

Implementing RefAssured took hours thanks to its turnkey design and native integration with leading ATS platforms, including the ATS that iMethods uses – Bullhorn One. And due to the ease of use and rapid ROI, internal adoption is at almost 100%.

“I forget how long the implementation actually took because it felt like I blinked and it was live,” said Allen. “No glitches, no disconnects, and the whole team started using it almost instantly because it was so much faster and more pleasant than our previous process. And because it writes back into Bullhorn automatically, all our recruiters could just go about their day-to-day.  References are completed quickly and accurately, and we can run as many as we want per candidate to really get a sense of their potential and productivity. Our clients just love the reports.”

The team has seen a big impact from RefAssured’s automated reference checking on their speed of placement.

Allen continued: “It used to take us between three and five days to turn around one completed reference when we were doing these on the phone, and with RefAssured all our references come back usually within the working day. They come back so fast that if we see any possible issues with a candidate, we can request additional references to get more clarity and resolve any uncertainties. We never used to be able to do that. Before, if the references were mediocre, we just had to forge ahead because we were running out of time. RefAssured has made identifying and placing the best people easy and fast.”

iMethods has also seen a strong financial return on their investment.

“We’ve found really high-quality talent leads from RefAssured and we’ve placed them with clients,” said Allen, “which has already paid for the cost of the platform and then some. Plus, our two recruiters who had to run all these reference checks manually now have all their time back to focus on revenue-driving activities for us. So that’s revenue growth, pipeline growth, and better use of our team’s time. How can you beat that?”

Additionally, as quickly as the platform moves, the RefAssured team matches it.

“We haven’t had the need to contact the RefAssured team about issues because there haven’t really been any issues, to be honest,” said Allen. “But the few times we’ve asked for anything, it’s been done in minutes.”