You can avoid costly mis-hires by alerting candidates that they must arrange reference calls with former managers…and as a final step in hiring, ask them to arrange those calls and then make those calls. As the founder of Topgrading, I have used this powerful “truth serum” to motivate almost 7,000 candidates I’ve interviewed to tell me the truth. They did. And for the past 15 years, since General Electric adopted Topgrading hiring methods, tens of thousands of managers have injected this “truth serum” — and they, too, got the truth. There is no doubt about this, because hiring managers eventually talk with the candidates’ former managers and verify interview conclusions. After you have motivated candidates to be honest, use the Topgrading Interview to get the most complete information from the candidate.