Referral hiring programs in corporate
This is becoming one of the most over hyped / used mechanism in the corporate world. Even after this, most organizations struggle to hire in decent numbers and minimal interviews. My thoughts are below:
There are a few modes in which I see this happening:
- Smaller Startups: looking to speed up hiring by employing known contacts of employee.
- Big Startups: looking to spread the word of mouth and getting bigger resume pools
- Corporates: Word of mouth publicity via employee social media to gain better visibility and reduce the cost to job portals.
To make this lucrative corporates employ gamification techniques and give out referral bonus, some even run scoreboard tally.
How I see the referral programs being played out nowadays:
- They post internally or online a vacancy.
- Employees circulate it on all channels, clearly asking candidates to send resumes to their personal id.
- Employee fills out internal form and push candidates forward.
- even if 1 in 10 or 100 gets selected, they net a pleasant bonus on it.
There is still a key ingredient which most people ignore. That is the role of recommendation. Why do you think this person is a good fit? Or why you think company is a good fit for person.
If you are an employee referring people just for money, remember these are the people who would be part of the very organization that you are part of, and one rotten apple is the start of rotting.
If you are an organization, be clear what are you trying to do with referral program: a. if aim is cost saving and only pay for selection may be just may be a push for that model to hiring platforms would yield better results. b. If aim is to find quality candidates, ask referring person why the candidate is a good fit. c. If your aim is to spread the word around, maybe just maybe look at other marketing effort then pushing job offers on the face. Something people might truly relate and do word of mouth on that like say a good CSR initiative or truly taking care of employees in need.
What do you think? Agree or disagree. Add your thoughts below 👇.
#recruitment #refferals #hiring #jobs