What should you ask a tech's references?

A tech's references are worth more than an attendance check.

The work runs through customers' homes and businesses on a route you are not standing on, so the answers worth collecting are the field answers: how the tech ran a service call, what happened when a repair did not hold, and how they left the room.

Ask questions built around that reality.

• The work: What did the tech do for you — service, installation, or both? Residential or commercial? Were they running their own calls by the end?
• Callbacks: When a repair didn't hold, how did the tech handle coming back? Did the callback actually fix it?
• Customer complaints: Did customers ever complain? What were the complaints about, and how were they resolved?
• Truck and tools: How did they care for the company truck, tools and inventory?
• Close-out: How did they leave the work area at the end of a job — the space, the packaging, the explanation to the customer?
• The exit: Why did they leave, and would you rehire them today?

Ask the same core set on every call and take notes during the call, not after.

Comparing answers across references only works when the questions matched, and your notes are only useful later if they record what was actually said rather than the impression it left.

Weight the sources, too.

The person who directly supervised the tech's field work can answer the callback and customer questions; someone who can confirm only dates and title cannot.

Start with the most recent employer, and keep going until you can describe how the tech handles a service call — not just that they had one.

Draw the channel line first, because what this page can confirm sits on one side of it.

If the information comes from a screening company as a background report, the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act attaches: the FTC's guidance to employers requires a stand-alone written notice before you order the report — one that is not part of the job application — then a copy of the report and the Summary of Your Rights Under the FCRA before an adverse decision based on the report, and an adverse action notice afterward.

That sequence, and what changes it, is laid out step by step in our guide to running a background check on an HVAC technician.

A reference call you place yourself is the other channel.

Our research covered the notice sequence for reports from a screening company; it did not cover what a former employer may lawfully say when you call them yourself.

The category that would answer it — state reference-immunity laws — was not researched for this page, so we will not summarize what any state allows or list which states restrict what.

Before you build the script and start dialing, confirm what applies where you hire with an employment attorney.

What you control is your side of the conversation.

The FTC warns employers not to ask any medical questions before a conditional job offer has been made — we read that to cover what you ask a reference too, so keep a tech's health, injuries and physical restrictions off the sheet while you are still screening.

Everything else on the sheet should be about the work: performance, callbacks, customers, equipment, rehire.

The practical target for the call: confirm the dates and title, learn what the tech actually did, hear how they handled a problem, and get a straight answer on whether the shop would rehire them.

If a reference offers a story about the tech's record, treat it like any other screening finding — weigh it before it counts, the way the next section describes.

A short, flat answer is incomplete information, not a verdict — it can reflect a company policy rather than a problem.

A glowing answer with no specifics is just as unverified.

What reads as signal is a story with parts: the situation, what the tech did, how it ended.

When a reference can walk you through one difficult call the tech ran and how it finished, you have learned something; when they cannot name the work at all, you have not.

Compare across calls.

Because you asked the same core set each time, the divergence is the signal: one reference describes a tech who went back until the callback held, another stops at "fine."

Write down the sentences, not the vibe — "described the callback but went quiet on rehire" is something you can weigh and check; "sounded off" is not.

Weight it before it decides anything.

The EEOC's guidance on criminal records says a targeted screen should consider at least the nature of the crime, the time elapsed and the nature of the job, plus an individualized assessment; that rule is about records, not references, but the discipline travels.

One cool reference from an old job does not outweigh a stack of specifics from the shops where the tech worked most recently, and vice versa: weigh what you heard against the job this tech will do for you.

If the theme you keep hearing is about trust rather than skill — and the candidate is otherwise someone you want to give a chance — the U.S. Department of Labor has a tool for the hesitation.

Its Federal Bonding Program, created in 1966, provides free fidelity bonds of $5,000 with no deductible covering the first six months of an at-risk new hire's employment; whether a tech with a doubtful reference qualifies as an at-risk job seeker under the program is the program's call, so check before you count on it.

A reference call is one input into the hire, not the whole screen.

Pair it with the rest of your process — our guide to hiring HVAC and plumbing techs covers how the pieces fit together, from sourcing through the offer.

This page is employer career and business information, not legal advice. What a former employer may lawfully say is a legal question our research did not cover — confirm your reference script with an employment attorney before you use it.