The Reverse Reference Check: What Former Churches Really Tell Candidates About You

In this episode of the Healthy Church Staff podcast, Todd Rhoades discusses the importance of recognizing that job candidates perform 'reverse reference checks' on potential employers. He emphasizes the necessity for churches to be aware of their reputation among former staff members, as these individuals significantly influence a church's perceived culture and leadership. Rhoades advises performing internal audits and maintaining transparency in the hiring process to accurately manage the church's reputation and address any underlying cultural issues. • Candidates often check up on potential employers through 'reverse reference checks'. • Former staff opinions can greatly influence a church's hiring reputation. • Transparency and honesty during interviews are crucial to align expectations. • Cultural issues like micromanagement or poor leadership contribute to negative staff departures. • Conducting exit interviews can provide valuable feedback and identify potential issues. • Regular audits of what former staff might say about the church are recommended.

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Transcript

The Candidate Checks You Too

SPEAKER_00 0:07

You spent three weeks checking that candidates record who didn't want to make a mistake. You called their former supervisors, you talked to their former board members and elders, you reached out to a few colleagues that may have known them in the past, but here's something maybe you didn't think about. And it's really important. While you were checking up on them, guess what? They were checking up on you too. That candidate, they called somebody who used to work at your church. They asked around in ministry circles and they did their own digging, and what they heard might surprise you. That's what we're going to talk about today, right here on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. Hi there, my name's Todd Rhodes, one of the co-founders at chemistry staffing.com, along with my colleague Matt Steen. And we're here every Monday through Friday on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast to talk about things that hopefully are of interest to you as a church staff member. And if you've ever hired, one of the important things that you need to do is to do a background check and especially a reference check to see where candidates have been, what other people are saying about them. And that's all good. You need to do that. You absolutely need to do that and a back and a full background check to be sure. But today, what we're going to talk about is what I call reverse reference checks, because they happen every time you hire somebody, and they happen and they're easier to actually do now for candidates than what they've ever been in before ever been before. Every candidate, at least every candidate worth their salt, is doing a reverse or reverse background check on your church. And here's what they're doing: they're asking former staff members about your culture. They will look up to see who was on your team. There's something on the internet called the Wayback Machine that will show all of your former staff members, and they will look up former staff members and reach out to them at times. Maybe they're connecting with people in your community who know your church. Maybe they're reading between the lines of your job posting. Maybe they're noticing how long positions stay open. Maybe they talk to the last person that just left. All these things are happening. And one of the things that I'm you're like, Todd, things don't happen that much. I am 350,000 churches in the world, and that is a lot of churches. Not in the world, in the country. That is a lot of churches, but I'm constantly amazed because I work with churches and candidates all day long, how much interlap there is. It's kind of, what is it, the seven degrees of Kevin Bacon? You're only seven degrees away from being Kevin Bacon's best friend. But the same works in the church world, and I'm amazed at how many people know each other, how many people that I know that have worked at different churches, and now they come across my path again. It's just really strange with that many churches being out there. But people will check up on you, especially if you're about to offer them a job. And it's really important for you to know as you're hiring, you're, you're, you might not be thinking about this because you're thinking about checking them out, but they're thinking about checking you out. You need to know what they're actually hearing. What are your former staff really saying about you? Or they're saying, hey, the senior pastor micromanages everything there. Hey, they say they value work-life balance, but they don't really mean it. Hey, communication is terrible. You'll find out about major decisions from the bulletin. Or maybe something like they hire fast and they fire slow. Wait, no, hire fast, fire fast, and hire slow. Uh, good luck getting a straight edge about the budget. The board runs everything, staff has no real authority. And you're probably thinking your former staff wouldn't say those things. But let me tell you, if your former staff left for culture reasons, guess what? Most of the time, they actually absolutely will say things just exactly like that. A lot of times you don't even have a good idea. Most churches, maybe you do, a lot of churches don't have really a good idea why the last person even left. You have a reputation that you're actually building, whether you know it or not. Your church's hiring reputation, it's not based on your website. It's built on the stories that former staff tell at coffee shops and over the phone and through an email or a text. It's shaped by how candidates experience your interview process, of course. And it's formed by how you treat people on their way out. Every former staff member becomes a reference for your church's culture, whether you want them to or not. So this opens up quite the Pandora's box. What are smart candidates actually looking for? They're asking things like, why did the last person really leave? And they might ask you that, but they also might ask the person that actually just left. They might look them up and ask them that, why did you leave? And here's what they want to know. How long do people actually stay? Here's what they're wondering. What's the real leadership dynamic at this church? And here's what they're testing. How honest are you being in the interview? They can smell desperation. Good candidates can smell disorder disorganization and they can see dysfunction. They can see it. You can't hide those things. So here's how it shows up in real discussions and in real conversations. Because these are some of the questions that they're really asking. When they ask about growth opportunities, they're really testing you when they ask that for dead-end roles. Is there going to be a place for me to grow here? Or am I going to be pigeonholed in one specific role or one specific job description? When they ask about leadership tile style, they're really probing for micromanagement. Hey, what's when most of the questions, and this is based, you're paying for the sins of other churches, when candidates ask about, hey, what's the leadership style? What's the culture here leadership-wise? They're actually probing to see, hey, does a senior pastor micromanage? My supervisor, will they micromanage, or will I be given some autonomy and some freedom in how I do ministry? When they ask about team dynamics, often really what they're trying to sniff out is, hey, what are the conflicts? What are some of the things that are going on here that they're not going to tell me? When they ask about, hey, why this position is open, they really do. They want to hear the real story, not the sanitized version. And here's the mistake I see a lot of churches make. They don't give the sanitized version because they want the person to like them. They want to actually hire the person. But guess what? If you do hire that person and they're there in the first six weeks, they're not going to get just the sanitized version because they're going to they're going to be in your ecosystem and they're going to see how that sausage is being made and they're going to understand why the position was really open. So tell them now and give them the honest answer, not just the sanitized version. So, what can I control? Do an audit. So here's your homework for today. Do an audit of what you think former staff might actually be saying about you. Ask yourself, hey, what if I called three our last three staff departures? What would they tell candidates if a candidate called them? And be brutally honest in your interviews with don't sugarcoat everything because if your candidate calls a former staff member and gets the real story, there's gonna be such a disconnect there that you're gonna lose the candidate. So be brutally honest in interviews. Candidates do respect that transparency. And if there are culture problems that you need to fix, try to fix those culture problems that make people leave. I was in leadership at a church once where we had lost a lot of staff members over a five-year period. And nobody connected the dots as to what was going on and why people were leaving. And guess what? It was a culture problem. It was a micromanagement problem. It was a leadership problem. And until they even knew what the problem was, there was no way to fix those culture problems. If you're not doing an exit interview with all of your staff, I would really suggest that you do that. Those are not just data collections, they're reputation management. And don't tie those exit interviews to any kind of severance package because you want that honest feedback. All right, here's your bottom line for today. I feel like I rambled a little bit here, but this is incredibly important. And we tell all of the candidates that we talk to, hey, don't take our word for it. You're gonna want to ask really hard questions of the church when you interview with the church, but you're also gonna want to do your homework. And we show them how to do that as well. Here's your bottom line for today. Your reputation as an employer, as a church, is being written by the people who used to work for you. And you can't control that conversation unless you helped control their experience. Have an honest conversation with somebody who left your staff the past two years. You probably have somebody in your mind and just say, hey, if a candidate called them, if a candidate called you about working here, what would you tell them? And listen without defending. That's right there. That is your real reputation, and that's what candidates are going to hear. All right. Hey, your next great hire is doing their homework on you right now. Make sure that they like what they find. All right, that's it for today. Hey, if there's any way that I can help you or your staff, maybe you need an exit, an exit interview strategy. Maybe you need performance review. We talked about that yesterday. Maybe you need some help with some templates for some performance reviews. Maybe you've got a staff person that you've been looking for that you haven't been able to find, and you're like, Todd, I know this is kind of what you guys do. Is there any way you can help me? I'd love to hear from you. You can reach out to me, podcast at chemistry staffing.com, or you can head over to my website at todd.church. I'd love to have a conversation with you to see how I can help you and your church in any kind of healthy staff compensation, hiring, firing, all those kind of things. If I can't help you, I've got somebody on my team that would, I'm sure, just hit it out of park for you. Reach out to me, podcast at chemistry staffing.com. And hope you'll join me again tomorrow. Let's see what we're looking at here tomorrow. Tomorrow we're going to talk about boomers and Gen Z. Hope you'll join me again right here on the healthy church guy.