How to Run a Reference Check That Actually Tells You Something
Reference checks for senior construction and facilities executive candidates are almost universally conducted badly. The typical process involves calling two or three names the candidate provided, asking a scripted set of questions about the candidate’s strengths and areas for growth, receiving uniformly positive answers, and concluding that the reference check confirmed what the interviews already suggested. At the end of this exercise, the hiring organization has learned almost nothing it did not already know, and it has missed the primary value that a well-conducted reference check can provide.
A reference check done well is not a formality. It is a structured conversation with someone who has observed the candidate perform in a role with real stakes, real constraints, and real failures, and it can surface information that is not accessible through any other part of the hiring process. This playbook covers how to structure that conversation, what questions actually produce useful information, and how to read what references are communicating when they are not saying it directly.
Before the Call: Setting Up the Reference Check Correctly
Do Not Accept Only Candidate-Provided References
Candidate-provided references are people the candidate has selected because they are confident those people will speak positively about them. They are not a representative sample of everyone who has observed the candidate’s performance. For a senior construction or facilities search, the most valuable references are often not on the candidate’s provided list: the CFO who approved the capital budget the candidate managed, the institutional stakeholder who worked alongside the candidate on a major renovation program, the subordinate the candidate developed who is now leading their own team, or the general contractor project manager who delivered a major project under the candidate’s ownership.
Reaching beyond the provided list requires the candidate’s cooperation and the hiring organization’s willingness to ask for it. Most candidates will provide additional names if asked directly and if the request is framed as a standard part of the process rather than as a sign of doubt. A candidate who refuses to provide references beyond the names already submitted is worth noting. That is not a disqualifying signal on its own, but it is worth understanding.
Review the Candidate’s Resume Against the Reference’s Known Role
Before each reference call, identify specifically what the reference would have observed. A VP of Construction at a health system who supervised the candidate for three years will have observed different dimensions of performance than a peer project executive who worked alongside the candidate on a single capital program. Knowing what each reference is positioned to speak to lets you direct the conversation toward the specific observations that reference is actually equipped to provide, rather than asking generically about the candidate’s overall performance.
Schedule Enough Time and Be Explicit About the Purpose
A reference call that is scheduled for fifteen minutes will produce fifteen minutes of surface-level information. For a VP or Director-level search, schedule forty-five minutes minimum and let the reference know at the outset that you are having a substantive conversation, not a checkbox exercise. References who are serious professionals will appreciate the directness, and they will engage more fully if they understand that the conversation is intended to be genuinely useful rather than procedurally required.
What to Ask: The Questions That Produce Real Information
Start With Context, Not Evaluation
The most common mistake in reference calls is opening with an evaluative question: “What were this person’s greatest strengths?” That question signals to the reference that you are looking for positive content, and you will receive it. Start instead with context: “Can you describe the specific role this person was in while you worked together, and what the highest-stakes responsibilities of that role were?” This grounds the conversation in specifics and signals that you are interested in the substance of the candidate’s work, not a general character assessment.
Ask About Specific Projects and Specific Outcomes
Generic praise tells you almost nothing. Specific project narratives tell you a great deal. Ask the reference to describe a specific capital project or operational challenge the candidate led while they were working together, what went well, what did not go as planned, and what the candidate did in response to what did not go as planned. The recovery story is often more revealing than the success story, because it shows how the candidate behaves when they are under pressure and accountable for a problem rather than a win.
For a construction executive, useful specific questions include: What was the largest capital program this person managed while you worked together? What were the biggest execution challenges on that program? How did they handle a significant schedule or budget problem when one arose? For a facilities operations leader: How did they perform during an unplanned major systems failure? How did they manage relationships with institutional stakeholders who were demanding or unreasonable? These questions require the reference to think specifically rather than speak generally, which produces far more useful information.
Ask About the People Who Worked for Them
One of the clearest indicators of a senior construction or facilities leader’s actual effectiveness is what happened to the people who worked for them. Ask the reference: Who were two or three of the strongest people on this person’s team, and what are they doing now? A leader who has developed talent, whose direct reports have gone on to lead their own programs, whose team members have been recruited away because they were demonstrably strong, is demonstrably better at the organizational dimension of senior leadership than a leader whose team members have not progressed. This question also often surfaces names of people who observed the candidate from below, which can be useful for additional reference conversations.
Ask the Closing Question Directly
At the end of every reference conversation, ask one direct question: “If you had a senior construction or facilities role open and this person applied, would you hire them?” The answer to this question, and more importantly the energy and specificity with which the reference answers it, is often the most useful signal in the entire conversation. A reference who answers with immediate and specific enthusiasm is communicating something different from a reference who pauses, qualifies, or pivots to talking about the candidate’s growth areas before eventually arriving at a yes. Both may say yes. The texture of the answer matters as much as the answer itself.
How to Read What References Are Not Saying Directly
Enthusiasm Is a Data Point
Senior construction and facilities professionals who genuinely admire a colleague do not speak about them in measured, balanced terms. They speak about them with specificity and enthusiasm. A reference who says “she was always very professional and delivered on her commitments” may be accurate, but they are not describing someone who made a strong impression. A reference who says “she was the best capital program leader I have worked with in twenty years; she managed a $200 million renovation program without a single significant budget overrun and her team would follow her anywhere” is communicating something categorically different. Calibrate your evaluation accordingly.
Pauses and Pivots Are Informative
When a reference pauses before answering a specific question, pivots away from the question to a different topic, or gives a noticeably shorter answer than they gave to other questions, that pattern is worth noting. References who are protecting a candidate will often redirect rather than fabricate. They will not say something negative, but they will avoid confirming something positive. Learning to recognize the topics that a reference is steering around is often more useful than the content they are volunteering.
The Absence of Specifics Is a Signal
A reference who speaks in generalities rather than specifics throughout the call is often struggling to substantiate the candidate’s record with direct observation. This happens when the reference did not work closely enough with the candidate to have specific observations, or when the candidate’s actual track record is less strong than their resume suggests. If you ask for a specific example and the reference cannot provide one, follow up directly: “Can you think of a specific project or situation that comes to mind?” If the follow-up also produces a generality, that is worth noting.
Integrating Reference Information Into the Hiring Decision
Reference information should be integrated with everything else the hiring organization knows about the candidate: the interview observations, the portfolio review, the work sample assessments, and the search firm’s own assessment of the candidate’s track record. A single reference who is lukewarm should not disqualify a candidate who has been strongly evaluated by multiple other references and performed well throughout the interview process. A pattern of lukewarm or generic references across multiple conversations is a different signal.
The purpose of the reference check is not to confirm what you already believe about the candidate. It is to surface information that would change what you believe if it existed. Conducting it as a confirmation exercise wastes the opportunity. Conducting it as a genuine discovery process, with structured questions, sufficient time, and careful attention to what references are communicating both directly and indirectly, gives the hiring organization the best available information at the point in the process where the most important decision is being made.
Real8 Group conducts structured reference conversations as part of every search engagement and shares reference summaries with clients as a standard deliverable. If you want to understand how we integrate reference intelligence into our candidate assessments, visit real8group.com/how-we-work, learn more about our process at real8group.com/finding-talent, or reach out at real8group.com/contact.
Real8 Group is a specialized executive search firm serving the real estate, construction, engineering, and facilities operations sectors across the U.S.
