[someotherperson]

> Sure. From the employers perspective, I get the appeal of references.

Respectfully, it doesn't seem like you do. References in many cases are actually needed for compliance purposes. An example for Anthropic is if the employee might be exposed to medical data, then reference checks can be used as part of a larger validation of employee identity to satisfy HIPAA requirements.

Amazon and others have the importance of reference checks baked into their agreements for those who work with them.

[s__s]

> References in many cases are actually needed for compliance purposes.

Those aren’t the kind of checks we’re talking about. In any case, those can be performed once an offer is made.

[someotherperson]

It's the exact same checks. I know this because I've had to fill out some of these compliance documents and implement similar sorts of procedures with the legal dept. In addition to background checks, candidate reference calls prior to onboarding are becoming a checkbox that must be ticked by various external groups.

And to clarify, it's not something I support or that I find it makes a lot of sense to me -- it's just an unfortunate situation of where things are currently at.

[s__s]

You run legal compliance on everyone interviewing for a job? What a waste of everyone’s time. Very inefficient and expensive. Do it after an offer is extended.

[snailmailstare]

Don't you mean background checks? A company sees the value in talking to 4 people of the candidates choice for HIPAA is just sad.