Most hiring processes treat reference checks as the final step before offering a role.
In early childhood education and care, that is a mistake.
A résumé can tell you where someone has worked. An interview can tell you how someone presents. A qualification can confirm eligibility. But a properly conducted reference check can reveal something far more useful: how a person actually works when the room is busy, the ratios matter, the families are watching, the documentation is due, and the team needs them to show up consistently.
At Early Years Talent, early childhood reference checks are not treated as a formality. They are part of the assessment itself. In early childhood reference checks, the most useful information is rarely a simple yes or no.
After completing dozens of structured reference checks across educator, teacher and leadership appointments, one lesson has become increasingly clear: reference checks do not just confirm employment history. They reveal patterns of reliability, role-fit, documentation confidence, leadership readiness and hiring risk.
That is especially important in early childhood recruitment because the cost of a poor appointment is rarely limited to replacing one person. It can affect team morale, family confidence, supervision quality, compliance, occupancy, and the stability children experience each day.
A solid early childhood reference check reveals what the interview could not
Most services complete reference checks because they know they should. The problem is that many reference checks happen too late, too quickly, and with questions that are too easy to answer politely. In early childhood recruitment, that is a missed opportunity.
A résumé can tell you where someone has worked. An interview can tell you how someone presents. A qualification can confirm what they are eligible to do. But a well-run reference check can tell you something different: what the person was actually like in the room, in the team, with families, under pressure, and over time.
That is where reference checks become valuable.
After completing hundreds of structured reference checks across educator, teacher and leadership appointments, we have found that the most useful information is rarely a simple yes or no. It is usually found in the patterns: reliability, role-fit, documentation confidence, leadership readiness, and the conditions a candidate needs to succeed.
For early childhood services, those patterns matter. A poor appointment does not just create another vacancy. It can unsettle a room, increase pressure on existing staff, affect family confidence, and restart the same hiring problem the service was trying to solve.
The most useful references are not always the most glowing
One of the most useful lessons from reference checking is that a perfect reference is not always the most helpful one.
A referee who says, “She was amazing, no issues at all,” may be telling the truth. But they may also be rushing, avoiding detail, staying diplomatic, or giving a broad endorsement without much evidence or trying to recall something that happened two or three years ago!
A more useful reference often contains nuance.
For example:
“She was very warm with children and families, and her attendance was excellent. She did need support with documentation early on, but once expectations were clear, she improved.”
That kind of reference is more valuable than generic praise because it gives the employer something practical to work with. It identifies strength, context and support needs.
In a sector where workloads, emotional labour and staffing pressure are already well documented, this matters. Research on early childhood workforce wellbeing has repeatedly linked educator workload, professional wellbeing and turnover intention with broader organisational conditions, not just individual motivation.
A nuanced reference does not necessarily weaken a candidate. Often, it helps place them more intelligently.
Reliability is not a soft skill in early childhood
In many industries, reliability is treated as a basic employment trait. In early childhood education, it is operationally critical.
When an educator is unreliable, the impact does not stay neatly inside a personnel file. It can affect ratios, room routines, breaks, programming time, children’s continuity, leadership workload and the emotional temperature of the team.
That is why reference checks should test reliability carefully.
Not just:
“Were they reliable?”
But:
“How did they manage attendance and punctuality?”
“How did they respond when the room was under pressure?”
“Could the team depend on them?”
“Did they follow through without repeated prompting?”
“What happened when plans changed?”
Reliability is one of the clearest indicators of appointment safety. It may not sound glamorous, but neither does plumbing until the ceiling caves in.
For educator and room-based roles, reliable practice often predicts whether the appointment will stabilise the room or quietly add pressure to it.
Documentation is often the hidden gap
A candidate can be excellent with children and still need support with documentation. That does not automatically make them unsuitable.
But it is an important consideration.
In early childhood recruitment, documentation is often one of the hidden differences between someone being suitable as an Educator, ready for a Lead Educator role, or prepared to step into a more autonomous teaching or leadership position.
Reference checks often reveal whether a candidate:
- completes documentation consistently
- understands the planning cycle
- needs close prompting
- can manage observations and reflections
- writes with professional clarity
- balances documentation with time on the floor
- becomes overwhelmed by administrative expectations
This is not about reducing early childhood practice to paperwork. Quite the opposite.
Recent Australian research has raised serious concerns about workload demands, unpaid hours and the way administrative expectations can reduce educators’ time with children.
That makes documentation confidence even more important to understand. A service should know whether a candidate can manage the documentation expectations of the role, and whether those expectations are reasonable in the first place.
Early Childhood reference checks reveal role-fit better than interviews do
Some candidates interview beautifully but need a very particular environment to thrive. Others are understated in the interview but outstanding in practice. Reference checks help identify the difference.
A referee may reveal that someone is:
- excellent with toddlers but less confident with kindergarten-age
- warm with families but hesitant in difficult conversations
- calm and nurturing but not naturally assertive with peers
- capable in a stable service but not suited to a room in distress
- strong as an Educator but not yet ready to lead adults
- highly experienced but only effective under clear leadership
- technically compliant but not especially relational
- relationally gifted but still developing written practice
This does not mean the candidate is good or bad.
It means the real question is more precise:
Good for what, good where, and good under which conditions?
That question is central to early childhood recruitment.
A service hiring a Diploma Educator for a settled room does not need the same profile as a service hiring a Room Leader to rebuild practice. A centre needing a calm, relational presence in the nursery is not necessarily looking for the same person as a kindergarten room needing curriculum leadership. A service recovering from instability needs a different appointment from one simply adding depth to an already strong team.
This matters in a workforce where professional wellbeing, workload and turnover intention are closely connected. Recent Australian research on professional wellbeing and turnover intentions among Australian early childhood educators reinforces why appointment decisions need to consider fit, context and support.
Reference checks help make those distinctions visible.
Leadership references need a different lens
For leadership appointments, early childhood reference checks needs to go much deeper.
A Centre Director, Assistant Director, Educational Leader or Operations Manager is not only being hired for personal capability. They are being hired for their effect on other people.
That means the reference check needs to examine:
- how they lead under pressure
- how they manage conflict
- whether they follow through
- how they influence team culture
- whether they hold others accountable
- how families experience them
- how they manage competing priorities
- whether they build trust or simply maintain control
- whether they can lift practice, not just describe it
This is where a generic reference check becomes commercially risky.
A referee saying “she is lovely” may be true, but it is not enough. A leadership appointment needs evidence of judgement, consistency and influence.
Early childhood workforce studies continue to show how strongly working conditions, leadership, wellbeing and retention interact.
A leadership appointment can either reduce strain or multiply it. Reference checks should help determine which outcome is more likely.
The follow-up question is where the truth usually sits
The first answer in a reference check is often polite. The useful information usually comes next.
For example, if a referee says:
“She was great with families.”
The next question should be:
“What made her effective with families?”
“Can you give me an example?”
“How did she handle a difficult family conversation?”
“Were there any situations where she needed support?”
If a referee says:
“He was reliable.”
The next question should be:
“What did reliability look like day to day?”
“How did he respond when the room was short-staffed?”
“Was he someone the team naturally depended on?”
Reference checking is not a script. It is a professional conversation.
The goal is not to trap the referee or catch the candidate out. The goal is to understand the person accurately enough to make a better decision.
Patterns matter more than isolated comments
One reference is a data point. Several references can become a pattern. That pattern is where the value sits.
If multiple referees independently describe a candidate as calm, consistent and child-centred, that matters. If multiple referees mention that documentation needed support, that also matters.
If several referees become vague when asked about initiative, leadership or difficult conversations, that should not be ignored.
A single comment may be unfair, biased or incomplete. But repeated themes across references are harder to dismiss.
Reference checks can also help clarify patterns that may have appeared earlier in the process, including some of the red flags when hiring early childhood educators.
Good recruitment is about identifying the pattern beneath the comments.
Reference checks protect candidates too
Strong reference checking is not only about protecting the client.
It also protects the candidate.
A poor match can damage everyone. The service loses time and stability. The team absorbs the pressure. Families notice the disruption. The candidate may lose confidence, even when the deeper issue was not capability but fit.
For example, a candidate may be excellent with children but not ready for a Lead Educator position without strong mentoring. Another may be capable of leadership in a stable service but not suited to a centre needing urgent culture repair. A third may be deeply nurturing and reliable but placed into an environment where the expectations are unclear, the workload is unreasonable and support is thin.
A good reference check helps prevent a good person being placed into the wrong context.
That is not just better recruitment.
It is more ethical recruitment.
Child-safe recruitment cannot rely on trust alone
In early childhood education, recruitment also has a child-safety dimension.
Reference checks should not be reduced to personality and performance. They should form part of a broader verification process that includes identity, employment history, qualifications, regulatory requirements and consistency between what the candidate has claimed and what can be substantiated.
Reference checks also sit within a broader child-safe recruitment framework. Victorian Child Safe Standard 6 makes clear that recruitment, referee checks and pre-employment screening should emphasise child safety and wellbeing.
That matters.
Early childhood services carry a serious responsibility. Trust is important, but trust without verification is not a recruitment process. It is a gamble wearing a lanyard.
A strong process should consider:
- whether the referee directly supervised the candidate
- how recently they worked together
- whether the employment dates align
- whether the referee’s account matches the candidate’s stated role
- whether answers sound specific or rehearsed
- whether there are unexplained gaps
- whether concerns are isolated or repeated
- whether the candidate’s documents and claims are consistent
Reference checks are not the whole child-safe recruitment process. But they are an important part of it.
Case study: When four references told the same story – but none of them were true
A dual-qualified Early Childhood Teacher and Primary Teacher applied for a Grade 3 teaching position at an independent school in Melbourne. On paper, she appeared to be a strong candidate. She interviewed confidently, submitted all requested documentation and was enthusiastic about moving from early childhood into primary education.
Nothing during the interview suggested there was a significant concern.
The concerns only emerged once the reference checking process began.
The first two manager references provided consistently positive feedback, but every answer felt unusually scripted. Follow-up questions produced vague responses, with little insight into the candidate’s teaching practice, decision-making or classroom performance. Rather than speaking naturally about someone they had managed, both referees appeared to rely on rehearsed, generic statements.
Instead of accepting those references at face value, we requested additional managers from previous employers.
Those conversations raised even greater concerns.
One referee, who was presented as a former centre manager, demonstrated little understanding of basic early childhood concepts that any experienced leader would normally discuss with ease. Questions about educator ratios, pedagogy and everyday centre operations could not be answered convincingly.
We then conducted further verification.
The phone number supplied for one referee was cross-checked using publicly available identity verification tools. The registered name associated with the number did not match the name provided by the candidate. While a mismatch alone does not prove wrongdoing, combined with the quality of the reference conversations and the referee’s limited knowledge of the workplace they supposedly managed, the inconsistencies became impossible to ignore.
At that point, the decision was straightforward.
The candidate was not presented to the client.
The school never knew this situation had occurred because the issue was identified before they invested time interviewing the applicant.
This was not a case of rejecting someone because of poor teaching. It was a case of protecting a client from information that simply could not be trusted. Without a rigorous reference process that goes beyond asking, “Would you employ them again?”, there is every chance this applicant would have progressed to interview—and perhaps even received an offer.
The lesson? Interviews reveal what candidates choose to tell you. Robust reference checking reveals whether the story stands up when nobody is watching.
What services should ask during early childhood reference checks
A useful reference check should explore both practice and context.
For educator and teacher roles, services should ask about:
- reliability and attendance
- supervision and awareness
- relationships with children
- family communication
- teamwork
- initiative
- documentation
- response to feedback
- preferred age groups
- ability to work under pressure
- whether the referee would rehire them into the same role
For leadership roles, services should go further:
- how they handled conflict
- how they improved team culture
- how they managed underperformance
- how they communicated with families
- how they balanced compliance and relationships
- how they supported educator retention
- how they responded when things went wrong
- whether their leadership reduced pressure or created more of it
The final question should not be “Are they good?”
The better question is:
“What would their next manager need to know to help them succeed?”
That question often reveals more than anything else.
The real value of reference checks
Reference checks should not simply confirm that someone worked somewhere.
They should help predict how that person is likely to perform in the specific role, service, team and leadership context they are being considered for.
That is the difference between a recruitment process that fills a vacancy and one that reduces hiring risk.
In early childhood education, where the work is relational, regulated, emotionally demanding and operationally fragile, that difference matters.
A strong appointment can stabilise a room.
A poor appointment can restart the same cycle the service was trying to escape.
Reference checks are one of the most underused risk controls in early childhood recruitment. Used properly, they reveal what interviews often miss: not just whether someone can get the job, but whether they are likely to succeed in it.
If you are reviewing a role where the appointment needs to be right, you can speak with a specialist about your next appointment.
Reference List
Canobi, K.H., Eadie, P., Murray, L., Levickis, P., Page, J. and McFarland, L. (2024) ‘Profiles of professional wellbeing and turnover intentions among Australian early childhood educators’, Early Education and Development, 35(5), pp. 1063–1079. doi: 10.1080/10409289.2024.2336434.
Farewell, C.V., Quinlan, J., Melnick, E., Powers, J. and Puma, J. (2021) ‘Job demands and resources experienced by the early childhood education workforce serving high-need populations’, Early Childhood Education Journal, 49, pp. 197–206.
Harper, E. (2025) ‘Workload demands, unpaid hours, and concerns about time with children: a survey of Australian early childhood educators’, The Australian Educational Researcher.
Heilala, C., Kalland, M., Lundkvist, M., Forsius, M., Vincze, L. and Santavirta, N. (2021) ‘Work demands and work resources: testing a model of factors predicting turnover intentions in early childhood education’, Early Childhood Education Journal, 50, pp. 399–409. doi: 10.1007/s10643-021-01166-5.
Thorpe, K., Jansen, E., Sullivan, V., Irvine, S., Lunn, J., Sumsion, J., Ferguson, A., Lincoln, M., Liley, K., Spall, P. and McDonald, P. (2020) ‘Identifying predictors of retention and professional wellbeing of the early childhood workforce in a time of change’, Journal of Educational Change, 21(4), pp. 623–647. doi: 10.1007/s10833-020-09382-3.
Frequently asked questions
These questions cover some of the common issues services consider when using reference checks as part of early childhood recruitment.
Why are reference checks important in early childhood recruitment?
Reference checks help services understand how a candidate performs in real early childhood settings. They can reveal reliability, supervision, relationships with children, teamwork, documentation habits, family communication and role-fit.
Are reference checks still useful if a candidate interviews well?
Yes. Interviews show presentation, communication and intent. Reference checks help validate behaviour, consistency and performance over time.
How many reference checks should an early childhood service complete?
For educator and teacher roles, at least two meaningful references are useful. For leadership roles, greater depth is usually needed because the appointment carries broader risk.
Can a poor reference check rule out a candidate?
Sometimes, but not always. A concern should be interpreted in context. The key question is whether the concern is isolated, repeated, role-relevant and manageable.
What is the most important reference check question?
One of the most useful questions is: “What would their next manager need to know to help them succeed?” It encourages the referee to provide practical, balanced and role-relevant insight.