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For founders and hiring executives

The Engineering Leadership Reference Guide

Most reference calls are a formality run at the end of a process, with the candidate supplying the names and the questions inviting a positive answer. This is how to run one that actually tells you something.

Author
Terra Talent
Status
In production
Access
Free, no email required
Flowering branches in a stone vessel against a pale plaster wall.

Who it is for

  • Founders taking references on a first engineering leader
  • Hiring executives who keep getting references that tell them nothing
  • Talent teams standardising how references are run and recorded

The problem it solves

Most reference calls are a formality.

For leadership hires, that wastes one of the highest-signal parts of the process.

What is inside

  1. 01Why reference calls usually fail
  2. 02Set up a candid conversation
  3. 03Context and relationship
  4. 04Technical judgment
  5. 05Leadership and management
  6. 06Pressure and conflict
  7. 07First-of-a-kind problem solving
  8. 08Communication and collaboration
  9. 09Comparative assessment
  10. 10What to listen for beyond the words
  11. 11Reconciling conflicting references
  12. 12Use references for onboarding
  13. 13Reference Synthesis Scorecard

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