Why Reference Checks Matter More in Construction and Facilities Searches Than Most Organizations Think
Reference checks have a reputation for being perfunctory. Hiring leaders call two or three names supplied by the candidate, ask a handful of open-ended questions, hear uniformly positive feedback, and check the box before extending an offer. In most cases, that process tells them almost nothing they did not already know.
In construction, facilities, and real estate executive search, that approach is a significant missed opportunity. The nature of these roles, the way performance is measured, the stakeholder environments candidates navigate, and the failure modes that are hardest to detect in interviews are all things that reference checks are uniquely positioned to surface. When done well, they are the final and most reliable filter in a search process. When done poorly, they are the step most likely to let a problematic hire through.
What a Reference Check Can Surface That an Interview Cannot
Interviews are controlled environments. Candidates prepare their narratives, manage their presentation, and emphasize the outcomes they want you to remember. That is not deceptive. It is simply how interviews work. References operate differently. A well-conducted reference conversation gives you access to people who have worked alongside the candidate in uncontrolled environments, under pressure, across extended time periods, and in circumstances where the candidate’s actual behavior, not their intended behavior, was visible.
For construction and facilities executives specifically, the most valuable reference insights are almost never about technical competence. Those dimensions are assessable through interviews and track record review. What references can tell you that interviews cannot:
- How the candidate performs under budget pressure or schedule recovery situations
- How they manage relationships with general contractors, subcontractors, or vendors when things go wrong
- How they communicate up to boards, trustees, or senior leadership who are not construction or facilities professionals
- How they respond to ambiguity, reorganization, or resource constraints
- Whether they build teams or rely on a small circle of trusted staff and struggle when those people leave
- Whether their self-description of their scope and authority in past roles matches what others observed
The Playbook: How to Run Reference Checks That Actually Inform the Decision
Step 1: Go Beyond the Candidate’s List
Candidates provide references who will speak positively on their behalf. That is expected and appropriate. But limiting your reference process to candidate-supplied names means you are hearing a curated sample. For senior roles, the most valuable references are often people who are not on the list: a former supervisor who the candidate did not offer up, a peer who worked alongside them on a difficult project, or a direct report who experienced their leadership style from below.
Ask candidates to provide more names than you need, then do your own outreach to identify additional contacts through your network, through LinkedIn, or through the search firm managing the engagement. A reference from someone the candidate did not offer you will almost always be more candid than one they selected.
Step 2: Brief the Reference Before the Conversation
The quality of a reference conversation depends heavily on what the reference understands about the context. Before you ask substantive questions, tell the reference the nature of the role, the type of organization, and the specific dimensions of performance you are trying to evaluate. A former supervisor who knows you are hiring a VP of Facilities for a $2 billion university capital program will give you different and more useful feedback than one who thinks you are filling a generic facilities management role.
This briefing step is skipped in the majority of reference calls. It takes two minutes and meaningfully improves what you learn.
Step 3: Ask Behavioral and Situational Questions, Not Character Questions
The least useful reference questions are broad character assessments: “What are their strengths?” or “Would you hire them again?” These questions produce rehearsed answers that tell you very little. The most useful questions are specific and behavioral:
- “Tell me about a project or program they managed that ran into significant problems. What did they do, and what was the outcome?”
- “How did they handle a situation where a contractor relationship broke down or a key subcontractor underperformed?”
- “What did their relationship with the board or senior leadership look like? How did they present difficult news?”
- “What kind of feedback did they respond well to? What kind did they push back on?”
- “If you were building a team and this role was a fit, would you bring them in? What would give you pause?”
The last question, framed as a hypothetical hiring decision rather than an endorsement request, is the most likely to surface hesitation that would otherwise stay buried in positive framing.
Step 4: Listen for What Is Not Said
Experienced reference givers know how to provide technically accurate but strategically incomplete feedback. Pauses before answering certain questions, abrupt shifts to a different topic, conspicuously brief answers to questions about specific performance dimensions, and qualifications that are phrased as praise but function as limits (“he was very effective in the right environment”) are all signals worth noting and following up on directly.
If a reference gives you an unusually brief or vague response to a question about a specific area of performance, ask a follow-up: “Can you give me an example?” or “What did that look like in practice?” The follow-up question is where hesitations tend to become clearer.
Step 5: Complete References Before the Offer, Not After
A significant number of organizations conduct reference checks after an offer has been extended or verbally accepted. This sequence inverts the purpose of the process. References are a decision input, not a post-decision formality. If a reference conversation surfaces a concern that changes your assessment of the finalist, you need to be in a position to act on that information before commitments have been made on either side.
In practice, this means completing substantive reference conversations, at minimum two to three, before the formal offer conversation. If the search timeline makes this difficult, it is a sign the process needs to be restructured, not that references should be moved to the back end.
Step 6: Calibrate by Role and Seniority
The reference check process for a Director of Facilities at a mid-size nonprofit looks different from the one for a VP of Construction at a major academic medical center. For Director-level roles, two to three substantive references are usually sufficient if they are well-selected and well-conducted. For VP and above, particularly where the role carries significant capital program accountability or board-level visibility, three to five references, including at least one peer and one direct report, provides a materially better picture.
For roles where the candidate is replacing a well-regarded incumbent, references that speak specifically to how the candidate handles the pressure of following a successful predecessor are worth seeking out explicitly.
How to Handle a Reference That Raises a Concern
When a reference conversation surfaces something unexpected, the instinct is often to discount it: one negative reference among several positive ones, a personality conflict, an unusual situation. That instinct is sometimes correct. It is also sometimes the instinct that leads to a mis-hire.
The right response is not to disqualify based on a single reference, but to probe further. Bring what you heard back to the candidate in a direct conversation: “One of your references described a situation involving X. Can you tell me more about what happened from your perspective?” How the candidate responds to that question, whether they engage honestly, deflect, or become defensive, is itself a meaningful data point about how they will handle difficult feedback once they are in the role.
Where Real8 Group Fits Into This Process
Real8 Group conducts independent reference conversations as part of every search engagement, going beyond the candidate-supplied list where possible and structuring conversations around the specific performance dimensions most relevant to each role. For Director and VP searches across construction, real estate, facilities, and engineering, this reference process is part of what allows the firm to present candidates with confidence rather than just presenting resumes.
If you are currently managing an executive search and want a more structured approach to the reference stage, or if you are starting a search and want a firm that handles this process as a core part of its work, start here, review how we work, or contact the team directly.
Real8 Group is a specialized executive search firm serving the real estate, construction, engineering, and facilities operations sectors across the U.S.
