Here's Why Cash Bonuses Don't Work for Referrals

The value of the employee referrals hiring channel is old hat in the recruiting world, with some companies going as far as offering exorbitant bonuses in exchange for access to their employees' networks. Despite this widespread practice, there doesn't appear to much evidence that it truly incentivizes employees. Google increased its referral bonus from $2,000 to $4,000 but did not see a significant increase in quality referrals from its employees. Meanwhile, GoDaddy actually cut the size of its referral bonus by two-thirds from $3,000 to $1,000 and actually increased their number of employee referrals. What seems to be the issue with cash bonuses for referrals? 

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Unbiasing and Diversifying Your Referral Funnel with Simppler CEO Vipul Sharma

Simppler CEO Vipul Sharma joins the podcast to chat about his work streamlining the employee referral process. As a former Director of Data Engineering at Eventbrite, Vipul saw both how effective employee referrals could be and how few tools existed to make the process easier for teams trying to scale. With his experience in machine learning and data science, Vipul took a data-focused approach to solving referrals by creating algorithms that match candidates to roles while offering clear workflows to promote collaboration across teams and departments.

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Using Rejected Candidates as a Referral Pool

If you, or anyone you know, would be interested in this role, please let me know.

Hopefully, you’ve never committed this cardinal sin of candidate outreach. At best, it’s a sign-off that will go ignored. At worst it’s a short sighted, ham-fisted request for a person you’ve never spoken to do work on your behalf. Either way, you’re not doing yourself any favors.

But at the same time, referrals often make up for around 50% of candidate pipelines. While typically these referred candidates come from current employees, no recruiter is going to say no to a warm intro. Here’s the truth: great professionals know other great professionals, and a recommendation from them goes a lot further than a cold email, no matter how cheeky your subject line is. Thus, I implore you to think outside the box when it comes to where you’re sourcing referred candidates –  specifically, your pool of rejected candidates.

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The Five Essential Steps to Creating An Employee Referral Program

Referral programs are the single best way to net quality hires in less time. Referrals are more likely to be hired than non-referral candidates, complete onboarding more quickly, have higher retention rates, and generate more profit than non-referral hires. You may already have a referral program, but a few tweaks here and there could make all the difference. Here are five essential steps to creating (or refreshing) a referral program.

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Why Sourcing Parties Are Your New Best Way to Find Talent

No matter the job, finding good candidates is a bear. Everyone from a restaurant manager to a startup CEO to a hiring manager at a Fortune 500 company will tell you so. The modern economy demands highly specific, hard to find skillsets that all too few (readily hireable) people possess. It’s up to recruiters to bridge the gap.

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The Employee Referral Strategy That Will Burst Your Hiring Pipeline

It's no great secret that the best source of hire is sitting right next to you. Referred candidates are more likely to get hired, more likely to stick around, and more likely to fit in with the team. By now, you've certainly instituted a program to incentivize your team to refer as many candidates as possible. While throwing some cash  in the event of a full-time hire will certainly yield some dividends, there's a more wholesome program you can institute that will result in many more submitted candidates.

When you set the success metric as the hire, you limit your team to think only about that single stage of the hiring cycle. If you want to make offers, you need on sites, and if you want on sites, you need phone screens. The strategy I here promulgate works because it encourages and rewards your team for their submissions regardless of how far the candidates make it through the funnel. 

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