Providing superior service in the staffing industry is not only about sourcing talent. It’s also about sourcing quality talent, which can be easier said than done.
When they work properly, reference checks are powerful tools. Too often, however, they do not deliver on their potential. They occur too late to be truly useful — that is, if they happen at all. References fail to respond, and recruiters waste valuable time chasing them down. Platforms designed to handle reference checks for enterprise corporations must be shoehorned to accommodate staffing organizations’ volume and breadth, and even then, they fail to integrate properly with ATS or other software.
Officially launched in January 2023 by the team that developed software-as-a-service company Compas Technology (acquired by Avionté in 2018), RefAssured aims to not only eliminate the pain points associated with traditional reference checks but also reimagine the value a reference check can provide.
RefAssured is designed to work at any point in the hiring process. Staffing companies can choose to have reference checks initiated by recruiters, by candidates or automatically at any predetermined point. Candidates submit self-assessments, and then the platform takes over, sending automated email and SMS notifications to reference givers. Gone are the days of chasing down references for inconvenient phone calls.
“One of the big objectives for us,” says Brian Vesce, co-founder and CEO of RefAssured, “is to help candidates present themselves through their work that they’ve performed and what their references are saying about them.”
The tool provides candidates with a new avenue to represent themselves based on their skills and proven performance rather than on a résumé alone. Even when reference checks are initiated by a recruiter or automated process, candidates have more control. Via their mobile app, candidates can see if their references have responded, update reference contact information and add new references to keep the process moving.
Once responses are gathered, RefAssured analyzes the data and generates reports about candidate strengths and areas for improvement in terms of performance, soft skills and teamwork. This information helps recruiters make informed hiring decisions, promotes a stronger fit between candidates and roles, and helps clients understand how best to onboard new employees.
Of course, no data is perfect. The potential for bias inherent in reference checks remains, regardless of how they are collected. Candidates benefit from representing themselves in the best possible light, including by choosing references who they suspect will give them the most positive feedback. Additionally, sample sizes for each data set are small, as users of RefAssured continue to collect responses from the traditional one or two references. While the RefAssured team has done its best to correct for these tendencies — including consulting with psychologists to word its questions in a way that solicits more statistically significant answers — RefAssured data will remain one of many tools in a recruiter’s toolkit when it comes to determining quality.
Still in start-up mode, RefAssured received an undisclosed amount of pre-seed funding from Bullhorn Ventures in January 2023 and has since focused on expanding its client base. While RefAssured supports all staffing verticals, it has prioritized the healthcare, IT and creative segments, where compliance issues and the need to verify specific skills are greatest. The company sees great opportunities in expanding into other areas, including the light industrial segment.
The Buzz
RefAssured goes beyond streamlining a cumbersome process. It leverages automation and data analytics to bring a new level of efficiency and effectiveness to an important but sometimes overlooked step of the hiring process.
