Nearly One-in-Four Employers Outsource Reference-Checking of Job Applicants, According to New York Times Job Market Research

Business Wire, March 28, 2003

Business Editors

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 28, 2003

Nearly one-in-four (23%) hiring managers say they outsource the function of checking personal or business references of job applicants, according to a survey of New York area employers released today by The New York Times Job Market.

Beta Research Corporation, on behalf of The New York Times Job Market, conducted telephone interviews with 250 hiring managers and 200 job seekers in the New York metropolitan area. Job seekers are defined as those who are currently looking or plan to look for a new job in the next six months.

Assessment Tools

Although job seekers applying for administrative and management-level positions say they participate in an average of two and three interviews, respectively, before receiving an employment offer - further assessment by hiring managers is often conducted.

Assessment tools used by hiring managers to help them determine whether a job candidate will be offered a position include:

Check personal/business references                          74%
Skills testing                                              43%
Conduct background checks for criminal/financial history    41%
Personality testing                                         29%
Physical exams, including drug testing                      20%

Compared to 2002, hiring managers say they use these job applicant assessment tools to the same extent (83%), more often (12%) or less often (5%).

About Job Market

Job Market, the print and online recruitment services offering of The New York Times, provides employers and job seekers with comprehensive resources to streamline the recruitment process. Job Market appears in The New York Times every Sunday and is updated throughout the week at nytimes.com, where job seekers can find job listings, career-related Times articles, exhaustive company research, a resume database and valuable career resources.

Through the newspaper's national audience, which includes 4.2 million weekday readers and 5.0 million Sunday readers as well as the 1.5 million readers who visit nytimes.com every day, The New York Times Job Market reaches a marketplace of high-quality professionals actively seeking new job opportunities or considering career moves.

Each week, The New York Times Job Market issues research on industry trends and workplace practices affecting employers and job seekers in the metropolitan New York region. On a monthly basis, The New York Times Job Market releases its Job Market Confidence Index. The Index tracks current conditions for recruitment in the New York metro area as well as future outlook for the coming six months. Copies of Job Market research reports are available upon request or at nytimes.com/jobmarket. New York-based Beta Research Corporation, via random telephone interviews, independently conducts The New York Times Job Market research.

NOTE: Job Market research is not affiliated with the editorial operations of The New York Times newspaper and does not reflect the views of the newspaper or its journalists. Source all references to Job Market research as: The New York Times Job Market.

About The New York Times Company

The New York Times Company (NYSE: NYT), a leading media company with 2002 revenues of $3.1 billion, includes The New York Times, The International Herald Tribune, The Boston Globe, 16 other newspapers, eight network-affiliated television stations, two New York City radio stations and more than 40 Web sites, including nytimes.com and boston.com. For the third consecutive year, the Company was ranked No. 1 in the publishing industry in Fortune's 2002 list of America's Most Admired Companies. In 2003 the Company was named by Fortune as one of the 100 Best Companies to Work for. The Company's core purpose is to enhance society by creating, collecting and distributing high-quality news, information and entertainment.

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