The call gets made because it has to be made, not because anyone expects to learn much. Three quick questions, a few polite answers, a tick in the box, and the offer goes out regardless of what was actually said. Somewhere along the way, reference checking stopped being a check and became a formality.
Part of the problem is the questions themselves. Was this person reliable, would you rehire them, these get you agreement, not insight. They don't tell you how someone handled a difficult landlord, how they responded under pressure during a busy settlement period, or how they worked within a team when things went wrong. A reference check built on generic questions will always return a generic answer, and a generic answer tells you nothing you didn't already know from the resume.
Then there's the version where the check doesn't happen at all. The role has been open too long, the candidate seems right, and calling the referee starts to feel like a delay rather than due diligence. This is how a Property Manager with a pattern of short stints slips through, how an Administration hire with a conflict at every previous job goes unnoticed until it happens again in your office. Skipping the reference check doesn't remove the risk, it just moves the discovery of that risk from before the offer to after it.
A reference check done properly takes ten minutes longer and asks better questions, specific ones, about specific situations. What did they do when a Landlord was unhappy, how did they handle a mistake, what would you want to know about them if you were hiring them yourself. That last question, asked honestly, usually tells you more than the first five combined.
Is the reference check part of your process, or is it just the last step before you press send on the offer?
realestatejobs.com.au