Employee Referral Program
An employee referral program encourages employees at a company to refer their business contacts and qualified friends for positions at their company. As part of the program, the company rewards current employees for referring a qualified candidate for a job. Some programs feature incentives like monetary compensation, but others use non-monetary rewards. Usually, the employee only receives a reward after the candidate has been successfully hired and completed a minimum amount of time on the job.
Candidate Referrals for Corporations
Employee referrals can also benefit the corporate client in many ways. First, a referral program fosters employee loyalty and strengthens corporate culture. Referrals also generally provide higher quality candidates than the general workforce, and these candidates will often have better knowledge of the company and be more easily on-boarded. Referrals can also save the company money, even with rewards, because they reduce recruitment costs.
Referral Programs and Recruiters
Many recruiters think of employee referral initiatives as being a corporate recruiting strategy, but referrals can also work for recruitment agencies or executive recruiters by giving them another source for qualified candidates. Recruiters are used to combing through their own networks or the Internet for job applicants, but an employee referral program can be a great way to source talent for a position. Recruiters may be able to offer monetary rewards like an employer plan or emphasize the value of business networking to their candidates.
Benefits of Referrals for Agency Recruiters
Besides actively sourcing candidates through job referrals, taking the time to create an employee referral initiative to source job candidates for a client can be a great way to get to know a client organization inside and out. By talking to employees about their job experience and the corporate culture in order to set up a referral system, a recruiter can gain valuable insight into the company that they can then pass on to their candidates. Making contacts with existing employees at a company can also help a recruiter expand their network and give them potential candidates for future positions. Referrals can also make a recruiter’s job easier and reduce the amount of time he or she needs to source candidates.
Crafting an Effective Referral Program
An employee referral program that will get the best results needs to have certain elements. The program must first and foremost be easy for employees to find and use. Many employees will get fed up with an outdated or complicated system. Successful referral initiatives also feature some sort of reward, so recruiters must work with their department hiring managers to find a suitable way to entice employees to refer others. Typically, referrals programs have a manual workflow, but increasingly, various recruiting software providers are including referral technology into their programs.