Burned Badly by Reference Checking

I was involved in a search recently that ended abruptly after the hiring company went through an exhaustive reference checking process.

After the second interview the candidate provided references and the HR Manager only did his job when he reached out to those references and began asking questions about the candidate. Those questions stimulated a deeper discussion about the position the candidate was interviewing for and then into a discussion about career path and so on.

When the call was over the professional reference called the candidate and said "what are you doing? and what would make you consider a job change in this current market?", the candidate immediately pulled themselves out of the process!

The learning experience was that references have always been and always will be a delicate and tricky process. You just never know what is going to happen. When the war for talent was on, the professional reference would call the candidate and try to hire them back versus in this case- tell them to stay put and wait it out. Beware out there!