Candidate recommendation program, candidate referrals, there are lots of names to describe the process of recommending a friend for a job vacancy. The trend has been around since the times of the Roman army. Apparently, Julius Caesar was one of the first people to reward soldiers for referring friends to the army. Fast forwarding to the twenty first century we raise the question today. Does your recruitment partner have a candidate recommendation program?
There is a lot of information out there about ‘employee referral programs’ that one can purview. However, this is not necessarily relevant to working with a recruitment partner. And it can compete with the efforts of your recruitment partner too. Candidate recommendation programs have proven to be effective. One of the only criticisms that the programs have had is regarding diversity. When people refer their friends, these people are usually from the same race, religion, national origin, or other protected class. This can lead to a company searching for diversity elsewhere.
Refer a Friend and get Rewarded
In the UK many of the leading recruitment companies have a candidate recommendation program. In the case of Randstad, the leading recruitment company offers individuals up to £300 worth of shopping vouchers in return once your friend is placed. This figure might seem low compared to other agencies. In the UK Hays offer up to £500 in retail vouchers to individuals recommending a friend.
Michael Page in the U.S. offer a gift card to the value of $400 should someone’s friend be placed in a temporary or permanent job. This seems to have recently been raised to $500:
When it comes to technology candidates the referral fees can often be far more generous. Harvey Nash in Belgium offer €1,000 for referred IT professionals you send their way. However, leading recruiters like Huxley or Progressive Recruitment only seem to have referral schemes in place in Japan today.
There are less ‘Refer a Friend’ or recommendation programs today than in the past. Whether this is due to the rise in layoffs amongst tech firms or something else is hard to say. The rewards also seem to be less generous than had once been the case.
Do Candidate Recommendation Programs really work?
There are lots of statistics out there to help decide on whether candidarte recommendation programs work. Most of them are limited to referrals direct to employers. Some of the statistics we found relate to how employee referrals shorten the time needed to fill a vacancy by up to 50%. They also suggest that employees who are hired through referrals are far more likely to stay with a company than direct applicants. Most direct applicants, 75% of them, leave after two years. Whereas 45% of referred candidates stay for more than four years.
One of the issues here is that if the referring employee leaves a company, their referred friends may follow them.
With external recruitment partners things are very different. Agency recruiters often have large networks. These recruiters are adept at building and maintaining relationships. This makes referral programs ideal for agencies.
Statistics related to recruitment and staffing businesses may be less compelling than those for in-house recruiters. But they are still better than statistics relating to direct applicants. According to one leading recruitment agency software business there are several compelling reasons to maintain a recommendation program:
- About 7% of candidates are sourced from referrals, but they have a much higher conversion rate of 40%
- Referrals are the top method for candidates to learn about a job
- Time-to-hire averages 29 days for referrals vs 39 days for direct applicants
- 47% of candidates hired via referral stay in their role 3+ years vs 14% of direct applicants
Most importantly, recommended candidates are often higher quality than direct applicants too.
Does Verita HR have a Candidate Recommendation Program?
Much like the trends show, the need for a recommendation program has become less of a priority in the 2020s compared to the 2010s. This doesn’t mean that Verita HR has discontinued its recommendation program. Au contraire. The program is still available for any interested candidates out there.
Back in 2016 Verita HR was gaining more and more traction in the tech space. As demand from the market increased so did the ideas amongst our HR projects co-ordinators. The first ever recommendation program was launched in 2016 offering 500 Polish zloties as a ‘bounty’:
Today Verita HR is offering 1000 Polish zloties or 250 Euros to anyone who refers a friend whom our team helps find a job. What do we need to do this? Only a few simple questions answered:
First the details of the person who is making the referral needs to be submitted to info@veritahr.com including the following details:
Name & Surname
Phone Number
Email Address
Address
Then our team would need the details of the person being recommended:
Name & Surname
Phone Number
Industry Sector
Most Recent Job
Language Skills including level of ability.
If you have a friend, then get in touch. If you need a copy of the terms of the recommendation program or anything else then our HR projects co-ordinators are here to help.
#Recommendation #RecruitmentPartner #ReferAFriend #VeritaHR
See Also:
Should your Recruiter be a Social Media Influencer? – Verita HR
Why your Recruiter is more than just your Pen Pal – Verita HR
