In the digital era, software engineers have never been as important or coveted. Companies have dozens and sometimes hundreds of third-party SaaS applications, internal systems, and proprietary technologies that help them run their businesses.
If you’re managing data or rely on software for your day-to-day business needs, then you need trusted software engineers with a proven background managing your sensitive data, software, and digital ecosystem.
Below we’ll look at how the right reference check questions can help you land a quality software engineer.
The only way to ensure you’re hiring the right candidate for your open position, or any position for that matter, is to have a vigilant hiring process. This means taking a holistic hiring approach and implementing cutting-edge solutions every step of the way, including sourcing, screening, candidate assessments, interviews, and, as we’ll discuss below, reference checks.
For software engineers, this means emphasizing both technical hard skills and the necessary soft skills required to work alongside a team of engineers.
Reference checks aren’t a one-stop solution to finding the best candidate, but they are an effective and essential tool to verify information on your candidate, identify any red flags, and implement a more objective measure of quality of hire and soft skills.
This is one of the most important questions you could ask anyone for a reference check, regardless of what position. It’s a polarizing question that asks the former employer/manager to identify any red (or green) flags. It also allows them to expand on their reasoning, which can help you learn more general things about the candidate.
Software engineering is a technical job, so you want to get an understanding of the candidate’s technical skill set. This is a great question that allows your reference to assess the technical aptitude of your candidate and provide examples of how those technical skills contributed to a project.
Especially if you’re hiring a lead or senior software engineer, you will likely need them to provide presentations and report on the progress of software-related projects. This is an opportunity for your reference to explain why the candidate is or is not an effective communicator, especially in high-stakes situations.
Most software engineers have to work with a team of developers to meet deadlines and complete projects. This is a good question that helps you gain insight into how well your candidate does in group settings and, if you’re hiring a lead position, their leadership style.
SaaS and software development are continuously evolving and growing. This is a great question that will assess whether or not a software developer is committed, driven, and aware that effective development requires continuous growth in the field.
This is a great question to help you tailor the reference question to your specific needs. Some positions require your representative to travel often to meet clients in person, others might ask them to focus on cold calls and cold emailing. Whatever skill set you’re looking for, you can highlight it here.
Problem solving and analytical skills are an essential skill set for software engineers. The best way to assess that skill set in a reference check is to assess how they use their problem solving skills to get through challenging projects.
We recommend conducting reference checks during the earlier stages of the hiring process. If you go through an entire hiring process and have very negative reference check experience, you will have wasted countless hours on sourcing, screening, and interviewing before having to let the candidate go.
Additionally reference check answers will be handy during the interview. If there are any inconsistencies between a reference’s account of a candidate’s work history and a self-reference report, you can bring it up directly in the interview. You can also expand on reference check answers to help improve your interview process.
Traditionally, reference checks involved team leaders and HR managers contacting references one by one in a long, manual process that wasn’t great at identifying future success. Today, advanced hiring platforms, like Crosschq, can gather automated candidate reports within 48 hours and provide your team with a new source of qualified and active talent.
Automated reference check technology, like Crosschq, allow you to:
Software engineers need drive, technical skills, problem solving abilities, communication skills, and much more to excel at their roles. Most development teams have tight deadlines to meet and projects to finish, so you want to make sure your candidate can hit the ground running as soon as possible.
Crosschq’s 360 digital reference check technology can help you measure candidate impact, soft skills, hard skills, strengths and weaknesses, and other key qualities that determine quality of hire. Want to learn more about how to measure quality of hire with reference checks? Download Crosschq’s Quality of Hire “Q” Report.
Our “Q” Report looked at 24+ million pre-hire and post-hire decisions we’ve helped leaders make, along with the radical insights from those data points that can help you hire, retain, and develop talent. And if you want to learn more about how Crosschq can help leaders and hiring teams attract, retain, and measure the performance of top talent, sign up for a demo today.