Last week we had a look at using some Boolean strings to reference check a developers java skills. This week i am going to look at how you can validate if a senior manager was a senior manager at a given time and in a given company as stated on his/her CV.
Let's take Mark O'Neill the CTO of Vordel a small Web Services Security start-up in Ireland as an example. So where do we start. Usually it's with the company's name and then it's with the URL of the archive site. Mark works for a company called Vordel and the site is http://www.archive.org/. Once you have these you click on the URL, go to the main search prompt, and type in the home web site of the company you are searching under. In this case Vordel. Give it a go.....Boom!!!... What you have in front of you is a cache of the website showing how the site looked at any given date. Generally it's collated on a monthly basis and it's tidy 'cause it's also done in yearly columns.
So let's have a look. Mark claimed that he was a manager in the company in 2002. To validate this I select the 2002 column and then pull one of the caches - let's say September for arguement sake. Amazingly, it brings us back in time and we can see from the home page his name being mentioned for an article he wrote. This is an added bonus. Usually, you wouldn't find his name on the home page. So let's go the normal route. He claimed to be a manager so let's think about it. Where would we find out about a manager on the web site. For me the best place to start is the "About section", or company information section on the menu bar. In Vordel's case their site wasn't the prettiest back in 2002, so it seems to be under More About Vordel.... Boom again!!... There he is, and we have a bio about him. And also some of the other managers he worked at which we could ask him if he would allow us reference check or even ring them for potential leads.
Give it a go with yourself or one of your own contacts and see if it works!
So now you know two different ways to do checks on candidates. Reference checks will never be the same!
