Evaluating Reference Quality

The Reference Quality Indicator is designed to evaluate the overall level of reference legitimacy. If there are any unusual occurrences between references— such as a shared I.P. address, unusual email domains, or a suspicious amount of time taken for reference assessments to be completed— they are flagged by the system and brought to your attention here.

As explained in the View References section, a proprietary algorithm examines a variety of factors and calculates a score on a scale of 0 to 100. Scores greater than 75 indicate a high confidence of legitimacy, and the references can likely be trusted as genuine. On the other hand, scores below 75 indicate some potentially suspicious activity. If there is any cause for alarm, they are listed underneath the Reference Quality Indicator heading.

Potential alerts may include (but aren't limited to) the following scenarios:

• One or more references have the same I.P. address as the candidate, indicating they were submitted from the same computer or network. Why would a reference be sharing a workstation with the candidate?

• One or more references have the same I.P. address as each other, indicating they were potentially submitted from the same shared computer. Do these references work for the same organization and department? How plausible is it these references would have a shared workstation?

• All references were completed within a short time span from one another, indicating the possibility they were all completed in one sitting. Did these references also come from the same I.P. address (or worse, the same I.P. address around the same time)?

• Reference email address is from a free public domain such as Gmail or Yahoo, rather than an address tied to a specific organization's private domain. How can we verify 'MegaNurse2017@yahoo.com' is a legitimate reference? Do they simply prefer to use their personal email for this business?

Note: There may be many legitimate reasons for a score to fall below 75%, so candidates should never be disqualified solely on what this score reads. If you are genuinely concerned with the legitimacy of a reference, your best option is to give one (or more) references on the list a phone call to confirm the details provided.

Reference details include things such as the company they worked at with the candidate, their job title, nature of their professional relationship, the date they completed the assessment, how long it took to complete, their I.P. address, completion status, and more.

Individual references contain the following details:

• Reference Name. The reference's name.

• Title.The reference's job title.

• Relationship. The reference's working relationship with the candidate

• Date Started. Date and time the reference began working on the assessment of the candidate.

• Date Completed. Date and time the reference finished their assessment of the candidate.

• Time to Complete. Displays the amount of time elapsed from when the reference opened the assessment to when the reference was completed. This is shown as minutes, hours, or days.

• Completed. Displays Yes if they have completed the reference assessment, or No if they have not.

• OK to contact? Displays Yes if the reference has indicated it is OK to contact them for more details, or No if they have not.

• Sourcing Opt-in? Displays Yes if the reference has allowed the organization to add their details to the candidate sourcing database, or No if they have not.

• I.P. Address. Displays the I.P. address of the computer (or other device) used to complete the reference assessment survey.

• Comment from Reference. Displays a short snippet of text provided by the reference about their working relationship and history with the candidate.

• Comment from Candidate. Displays a short snippet of text provided by the candidate about their working relationship and history with the reference.

• Reference Information. Displays the mailing address, landline and mobile phone numbers, and email address provided by the reference.

As noted in the section above, if any of these details demonstrates cause for concern, the Reference Assessment system takes notice and lets you know in the Reference Quality Indicator section.