Search · 2026-06-18 · 4 min
Ask each finalist who they let down
A reference list made of advocates confirms the candidate has friends. It does not tell you how they behave when it goes wrong.
Every finalist can produce three people who will say they are excellent. Those calls are still worth making, but they rarely change a decision.
The call that matters is with someone the candidate disappointed: a project that slipped on their watch, a hire that did not work out, a team they lost. We ask each finalist to name that person, and then we call them.
The point is not a bad reference. It is an honest one. How a leader talks about their own failures is one of the better signals we have for how they will handle yours.