When checking prior employment references, do not seek information about the applicant’s salary history with previous employers. For more information, see Application for Employment.

Use of credit agencies and investigative consumer reporting agencies to check the backgrounds of candidates and employees is regulated by both federal and state law. Use of credit reports is extremely limited. For details, see Obtaining Applicant and Employee Credit Report.

You cannot inquire about or consider the conviction history of an applicant until after a conditional offer of employment has been made. For details regarding use of criminal records in the hiring process, see Restrictions on Obtaining Criminal History.

Employers are often tempted to investigate an applicant’s online activities, including social media activity. For precautions, see Social Media.

Obtaining Authorization

If you intend to check a candidate’s references, you should require the candidate to sign a waiver authorizing you to investigate all information they submit on a job application. Employment applications should include a basic waiver, allowing you to check past employment, personal references and education. Obtain this authorization before you contact references.

The sample Employment Applications contain such waivers.

• Employment Application - Long Form
• Employment Application - Short Form

Contacting References

When contacting references, provide the reference with a copy of the authorization obtained from the applicant.

Use the Reference Check for Employment to request reference information from a job candidate’s prior employer(s).

• Reference Check for Employment

When contacting references, you must gain the maximum amount of information on a candidate without creating liability for invasion of privacy. Stick to questions that are directly related to job performance.

Use the Guide for Pre-Employment Inquiries to determine if a question to a reference is acceptable.

• Guide for Pre-Employment Inquiries

Personal references generally are not helpful in the reference checking process, because they are often close friends of the candidate and therefore more than likely to give a biased report or private information not necessarily relevant to your inquiry. You can improve your chances of obtaining relevant information if you request personal references with knowledge of the candidate’s work performance, such as past supervisors, subordinates or clients.

• Don’t ask references about the applicant’s prior salary history.