I believe this depends on the office / region you are applying for.
Asking previous employers is not done in the Middle East

Hey there,

For Europe, background checks are very uncommon. Not sure about other geographies but there are already good answers here. :-)

Cheers,

Florian

Hi!

Background check is conducted regularly for all candidates. 

As per your references, there shouldn't be any major issue if they expressed their willingness to help you!

Best,

Anto

Almost always there is a background check.

I'd say reference checks are rare, but should always been expected. I've had 1-2 reference checks in my career, but every job has come with a background check.

Do you mean background check?

Reference check is about getting a professional character & performance reference from one or two referees. This is different.

Hi there. For MBB, they will do background check for EVERYONE once you receive the offer. The reason is simple, they outsource the background check process to 3rd party so there is no capacity issues. 

So the answer is YES, 100%. However, the content they check is very basic. They won't get into details on your performance, job duty, etc. They only verify the factual parts, i.e. job title, employment period, whether you leave voluntarily. They also check your criminal record but the 3rd party service provider usually have their own access to that so this will not go through your former employers. 

Hope this helps!

Hi there,

In my experience, it depends on the region and company you're applying to and your specific situation. Ask yourself the following questions, they might guide you:

• Is the country I'm applying to known for actively involving reference checks in the recruiting process - at least during the screening stage (the U.S. is a good example for that)? For most European countries, for instance, this is not the case.
• Is the company known for being suspicious about information in applications? For instance, several consulting companies have included a “background check” passage in their offers to be able to withdraw an offer if anything pops up.
• Is there anything peculiar about my application that might want the company to check the references? Examples for that would be an unusual number of projects (few in a long time/ many in a short time) for project-based activities or odd wordings in the interim report.

Best,

Hagen

Always assume that there will be a reference check.

In reality:

• Sometimes it will be an explicit check - meaning you will be asked for reference contacts
• Sometimes it can be implicit - by contacting your previous employer anonymously (although that doesn't happen often lest your existing employer would get to know of your incoming transition)
• Sometimes there is no check - since most consults evaluate you thoroughly during the interview process.