I believe HR has at least 26 dirty, little secrets. I’m about totell you about just one. No. 26 could be as bad or worse than No.1. I’ll let you decide when I’ve written them all.

So, what is No. 26?

“We check secondary references, without you knowing, all thetime!”

First, let me give you the line that 100 percent of all HR proswill give to you and all employees all the time. “We do not givereferences. We will only give you employment verification, whichincludes dates of employment. Thank you.”

You’ve heard that, right?

But the dirty, little secret is that we give out references allthe time, especially if you’re a terrible employee! We just don'tdo it publicly.

The chairman of JetBlue Airlines, Joel Peterson, wrote a recentblog post on LinkedIn titled “Top 10 Hiring Mistakes, #5 LazyReference Checking, where he gives advice about checking secondaryreferences.

HR gives out references all the time

Secondary references are those references that a candidatedidn't give you, but that you have through your ownconnections.

He said you should always let the candidate know you’ll bechecking secondary references so they can reach out and let thosepeople know.

First, thanks for the tip, Joel, but that never happens. Never.Plus, why would I want to give away the one unfiltered piece of theselection process I can get? You don't do that!

Here's the reality: If you interview for a position, you shouldassume that someone in the organization is checking secondaryreferences behind your back.

It's easy to do. I call up a buddy who works at your current, orold organization, we talk, catch up on our favorite teams, crazyemployees we both know, etc. Then, she lets me know if you’re atrain wreck or not.

Of course, she also first says, “Tim, you know we can't givereferences.” Then she says, “Off the record, your candidate is apsychopath!” End of secondary reference.

You think I’m joking? It happens just like that, and it happensevery single day.

Don't get me wrong; most of the time, the secondary referenceactually comes back positive. You get more of an unfilteredreference than you get by checking the “given references” acandidate provides to you as part of your process.

Given references are completely worthless. I don't even waste mytime checking given references. If someone can't find three peoplewho think they walk on water, they’ve got bigger problems.

If you’re going to do “given references” because you can't talkthe old white guys in your leadership out of it, because it makesthem feel all warm, fuzzy and comfortable, at least talk them intoautomating this process.