[user5994461]

> A million different ways of doing things -- but referencing is so often overlooked and I've never understood why.

Because it's worthless.

There is a 1% chance that you'll find out that "that guy" was a drug dealed and he was let go.

The other 99%. It's impossible to know if you're calling a friend of him, if you're talking with an ex-grumpy manager who's backstabby (that may be why the guy left in the first place), if you're reaching someone at all (do you seriously expect employees to have valid phone numbers from people they've worked with 5 years ago and the numbers are still valid??? wtf), and of course you can't get nor trust references for the current company (you're not only rattling him out but the reference may have a serious incentive to lie to you in ways you can't possible understand).

And last but not least, all consulting and sweat shops will ask and insist for name and references of everything, not to hire you BUT to go harass your companies as potential customers for their services.

IMO: references are optimizing against everything they're supposed to help with. Never do referencing. Stop interviews when people insist on references.

[P.S. Answering reference requests is a liability that's putting you at risk (and it's forbidden in a lot of places). Don't do it. The only acceptable answer is "That guy has worked with us around <that period of time>. That's all I can tell you."]