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I am working on a President/CEO search and I am scheduling the intermediate selection step which is when I present references to my client.
One of my candidates has expressed concern that anyone find out he is looking.
Has anyone here ever asked a reference to sign a confidentiality agreement about their candidate?
If so what did that look like and how did it roll out?
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Two comments: first, I would think that any quality CEO or President level individual would have a network of trusted professional executives who could certainly be trusted to provide an appropriate confidential reference for that person.
Second: I've never seen anything like that done before and, given a candidate with that kind of network, it could be perceived as an insult to those references to ask them to sign any kind of a document like that.
If the candidate doesn't have those kind of professional and personal relationships, that's probably a good sign that they're not the best candidate for the role.
Some clarification for you Dave,
This question of a CA came up from one of my candidates and I think overall they did not truly see through to the fact that the references are provided by them and that they will be speaking with the references before I do. Once we discussed through this again the candidate relaxed a little and understood that the relationship that they have with the reference had better be good enough that they can be given as a reference and trusted not to compromise the candidate's position or maybe they are not a viable reference.
I still wanted to pose the question up front to find out if this was something that had come up in the past. There was an article that quoted Beth Solomon at CTPartners as actually getting references to sign a CA and I found this interesting.
I haven't done confidentiality agreements for references, but the candidate should at least explain to their reference the need (fear of current employer finding out they are looking) to keep the conversation they have with the recruiter confidential.
I generally wait to do references with the candidate's current employer until there is some desire to work together is expressed on both the client & candidate's side or even a verbal agreement is in place. Meanwhile it is generally safe to check references with past employers, peers, & those who reported to the candidate.
Are you presenting references without the client having met the candidate yet? I'm a little confused as to the steps your process.
