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through the eyes of the reference. Although people do change at certain critical times in their business or personal lives, those changes tend to be more gradual than climactic. Therefore, gathering observations of an individual's past job performance becomes the best way to predict future results. In our view, it is a far better predictor than interviews, projective tests or psychological evaluations. That is not to say that any of the above assessment techniques should be downgraded, avoided or abandoned. However, if you had but one technique to use, emphasize the one with the greatest power for predicting on-the-job behavior -- the reference.
Through careful referencing we can take advantage of the thousands of hours of data observation which have been going on in the workplace by those for whom, with whom and under whom the candidate has worked. Contrast this level of exposure with interview evaluations which probably average four to six hours for middle management positions, more for top executive positions. Even with 10 to 15 hours of interviewing, how sure can we really be of the candidate's true ability to perform without outside confirmation of the interview results?
An expert interviewer, having conducted in-depth interviews of a candidate, may develop some strongly held opinions about that candidate's performance on the job. For certain, that interviewer has built a series of assumptions to be tested through the reference process and is in a position to evaluate reference input against the personal impressions from the interview itself. However, because the candidate perceives a self-interest in portraying himself or herself as favorably as possible (without being grossly inaccurate in responding to the interview situation and questions), the interviewer -- regardless of professional training -- has imperfect ability to translate the interview impressions into an accurate description of what the person would actually do in a job situation. At best we can make
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