When hiring an investment advisor, due diligence is everything. Financial planning firms need to verify not just credentials, but real-world performance, client relationships, and regulatory standing. This Investment Advisor Reference Check Form helps you gather detailed, structured feedback from professional references to make informed hiring decisions.

Built specifically for financial services firms, this template covers the essential verification areas: portfolio performance history, client relationship quality, regulatory compliance track record, and adherence to fiduciary standards. Instead of scattered phone calls and inconsistent notes, you'll gather standardized, comparable data across all candidates.

The form captures reference contact details, relationship context, and detailed assessments across key competency areas. Questions cover investment strategy effectiveness, risk management practices, client communication quality, compliance history, and ethical standards—all critical for evaluating whether a candidate will uphold your firm's reputation and fiduciary responsibilities.

Why Paperform for reference checks?

This template leverages Paperform's conditional logic to adapt questions based on the reference's relationship type (supervisor, colleague, or client), ensuring you ask the most relevant questions. The professional design creates a credible experience that encourages thoughtful, detailed responses from busy references.

Once submitted, you can connect this form to your ATS or HR systems using Stepper (stepper.io) to automatically route reference responses to hiring managers, compile candidate scorecards, or trigger next steps in your recruitment workflow. For roles requiring formal verification, use Papersign (papersign.com) to capture eSignatures on reference authenticity attestations.

Whether you're a boutique RIA, wealth management firm, or multi-advisor practice, this template helps you conduct thorough, compliant reference checks that protect your clients and your firm's reputation.