Well the style is a bit know-it-all, but he makes some good points.<p>Main point: <i>An engineer will have a body of work that can be evaluated and tests that can be given [...] However, if you are hiring a CFO, CTO, VP of Business Development or top marketing and sales executives, it’s not so easy. [...]
Base 80 percent of your hiring decision on thorough reference checking</i><p>I actually think references are underused in the more technical areas too. There's little point in having a person pass a bunch of tests if they are hard to work with, or lose motivation easily, or are sloppy with their practices, and so on.<p>And:<p><i>You should plan to talk to all their direct supervisors, some peers, and at least a few people who reported to them.</i><p>I couldn't agree more. Supervisors rarely have the whole picture and yet most employers will only seek references from them. Especially in software where a lot of people are matrix-managed or team-managed, that strikes me as woefully inadequate.