When evaluating a candidate, feedback from previous colleagues or managers can add valuable insights into their fit for your company.
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With the References feature, you can request your candidates to add their references. You will then be able to send them a reference form to collect detailed feedback, which will be automatically added to the candidate’s profile.
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Once the feature is enabled, head over to Settings → Templates. Here, you’ll find a new section called References, including a default template to help you get started.

The reference template is the form sent to the reference(s) provided by the candidate, where they answer a set of questions. This allows you to gather relevant feedback, such as their professional relationship and experience working together.
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You can use the default Teamtailor template as is, or customize it to suit your needs. You can also create new templates or duplicate existing ones to support different recruitment processes.

In the reference form, you can use the following question types:

You can make any question required by ticking the Required box. This means the reference form cannot be submitted without this question being answered. This will be indicated with a small asterisk * next to the question in the form.

References can be added to a candidate in several ways. Regardless of how, candidates will be directed to a page where they can provide their references name, email, company, and title.

Once the information is submitted, an automatic email is sent to the reference. They’re first asked a simple yes or no question: whether they would recommend the candidate as a future colleague.

The reference can also choose “I don’t want to participate” directly from the email. If selected, no response or personal data will be stored.

When the reference submits a yes or no response, it is automatically displayed in the Recommendations section of the candidate’s profile. From there, you will be able to send a full reference form to collect more detailed feedback.

When a candidate connects with you, they can add people as references for future job processes. They do this by going to their Connect profile and clicking the Add references widget on the dashboard.

After applying for a job on your career site, candidates can choose to add references to their application.
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From the candidate card, you can manually request references from a candidate by selecting Ask candidate for references from the ⋮ More action menu.

The candidate will receive an email with a link to a page where they can add their references.

The link is valid for 24 hours after it’s created. If opened after that, the candidate will be asked to confirm their identity by entering their email address and verifying it via a new link sent to their inbox.

To manually request references from candidates, you can add the Ask candidate for references trigger to your job process. Every time a candidate is moved into the selected stage, an email will automatically be sent to them where they are asked to submit references.

You can also add references for the candidate manually by clicking Add reference in the action bar under ⋮ More on the candidate profile.

Add the information of the person you want to request a reference from. By ticking Send email, a reference form will be sent as soon as you add them, based on the selected template. If you leave this option unticked, you can instead send it later when the time is right.

Once you have set up your reference templates and the references collected, it’s time to start collecting their feedback. This can be done manually for one candidate at a time or automatically in the job process using a trigger.

Automatically request feedback from references added to candidate profiles by using the Ask references for feedback trigger in your job process.

In the trigger, you select which reference form template to send. When the candidate is moved to the selected stage, the reference form is automatically sent to their added references.

You can also send out a reference form manually by hovering over an added reference under Recommendations and selecting Request reference.

The email sent to the reference will look something like this (image to the left). When opening the form, they will end up on a form directly on your career page (image to the right).

Once a reference form has been answered, the recruiter will be notified, and you will see their feedback directly on the candidate card in the Recommendations section.

Reference feedback is visible to team members based on the context in which it was collected. If a reference request is sent within a job, the feedback will be accessible to the hiring team for that specific job.

If you want to share this feedback with someone outside of your Teamtailor account, this data can be included when using the Share candidate feature.

When you’ve sent the reference form, this person’s status is changed to Waiting for feedback. If the person doesn’t answer, you might want to manually send them an email via your email service as a small nudge. You find the person's email address by hovering over their name and clicking ⋮ the three dots:

The people receiving the reference form request will always have the option to opt out directly in the email. When doing so, this person's details are removed from that candidate’s profile. The mandatory legal information is automatically added to the bottom of the email, which also includes a link to your company’s privacy policy.