Automating references, yay or nay?

My contract with my current customer is ending in December, so I’ve now started slowly searching for new contracts or at least building new networks for getting new contracts next year.

I noticed that more and more staffing companies are using an automated platform for getting references and I’m not sure how I feel about it.

When I am asked for references, I usually pick people with whom I’ve worked with that are of fairly high positions, also people whose time i respect and value, and of course people who I’m hoping would give some good feedback about the time we have worked together.

Again maybe that’s not the norm because I’ve heard some stories of people not even giving a heads up to the references and therefore getting some pretty brutally honest reviews.

So yeah, when I submit references expecting the companies to give a call and then in the end getting an email about how I should ask my references to respond to the email or sms survey they have sent kind of gives me the icks.

In a way, I get that they are trying to make the process more effective, but I think getting reference feedback may not be the best candidate for automation. There are so many other things in the hiring and recruitment of staffers that can be automated.

Then again, maybe this is a trend only in the space of recruiting contractors. Is it really effective though? Contractor resources are much more expensive than full time resources, you’d think a company would want to make absolutely sure that they are getting quality people.