When clearing a candidate's background, is it legal to ask for past performance reviews?

As Nik responded, there's nothing preventing an employer from asking. But legal in the employment world also infers job relevant. And that's where using performance reviews for hiring gets sticky. I don't beleive anyone would suggest that most performance reviews are subjective in nature. So how would you prove if asked that the criteria you used to hire or not hire was valid and reliable, two prerequisites for EEO compliance. In my experience, the construction of the review itself (aka questions asked) and execution by managers is weak at best. If a hiring manager was looking at ratings exclusively, I'd say the review could present a problem if challenged. But like Mel said, I do believe the information could be helpful in reviewing how a candidate handled people and projects previously...and how he or she supports or defends his or her rating. The review would also provide some context for the type of culture the candidate worked in, giving an opportunity to manager to evaluate organizational fit. In other words, the performance review process could enhance the interview, even if the performance review itself wasn't relible. The real problem then might not be the review itself but how hiring managers utilize the information. But then again that's no different than how many managers ask questions, use personality tests, and make hiring decisions. In my opinion, the reviews could be helpful in evaluating how a candidate performs, thinks, and fits into a culture.

It's legal to ask. But I don't think you'd get very far, it would almost certainly be illegal to provide them in any country with real data protection laws (so that's the whole of the EU - not sure about the US, but I suspect the same would be true).

I'm not sure how they'd be of help in determining the way someone would perform in your organisation anyway - with a different corporate culture, different management structure, etc. it would be fair to assume that past performance is no guarantee of future returns.

I think employers tend to go overboard on background checks - we did a small scale trial where for around 20 hires we took full background on 10 hires, and none whatsoever on the other 10.

Interestingly neither approach was any more successful than the other in guaranteeing "fit" or suitability.

I would address this question differently in the US. In doing interviews with prospective employees I always ask if their last company did performance reviews and if so did they get a copy of their reviews. In almost all case applicant got a copy of their review. We then talk about how they felt about the review, what was measured and what their managers said about their preformance.

If after this interview we are still interested in the candidate we call them in for another interview and ask them to bring a copy of their preformance review.

I am not sure that this would be useful. As Bob said, how do you know that the previous performance reviews were accurate, valid or reliable? What happens if the applicant comes from an organization that does not do performance reviews? I would rely on things like behavioral interviewing or proper reference checking etc. done properly than on PR's that might not be worth anything.

John, your suggestions are excellent and should be followed. I'm always amused that hiring managers put so much faith in unknown prior managers' opinions given that the prior managers are losing an employee. Employees willingly join their employers but regretfully have to flee their managers. So, if we have a job applicant who is leaving his employer should we be concerned about the applicant's prior job performance or the prior manager's bad behavior that is driving the employee to a new employer?

Only the employer is in a position to know if a job applicant will be successful if hired and future job success does not depend on prior performance reviews by prior unknown managers.

If we want to hire successful employees, then we need to hire competent applicants who also have a good or better job suitability or job talent for short. Everyone wants to hire for talent but if we can't answer the five questions below with specificity, we can't hire for talent.

1. How do you define talent?
2. How do you measure talent?
3. How do you know a candidate’s talent?
4. How do you know what talent is required by each job?
5. How do you match a candidate’s talent to the talent demanded by the job?

The information we need to make excellent employee selection decisions reside in two places;
1. Current top performers and
2. Qualified to be hired job applicants.

First we need to get the data from our top performers and then we need to compare that data to the applicant's data to see if there is a match or not. It works and it works extremely well and the methodology has been used since at least the 1960s. The tools have changed but the methodology is the same.

Yes, we also get the same data from the average performers and the below average performers since such data is very useful.