Jun 03, 2021

Why Job Referrals Are the Best Source for Quality Candidates

What do you look for when trying to find quality candidates? What are the various creative ways to source candidates when you’ve had a position that’s already been open for too long? Why are job referrals important and how does it help you as an employer? - These are just some of the questions that you as an employer are faced with on a daily basis. It can be pretty overwhelming to be bombarded with hiring advice 24/7.

We get it, the struggle is real!

But hear us out while we talk about why job referrals are important and how they help you hire quality candidates. Get ready for some handy tips to hire the right employee without all the hassle and frustrations that come with wading through thousands of resumes.

Hiring advice no.1 – Hire faster through job referrals

We bet there’s been times where you’ve had a job posting that’s been up for months, but you’re yet to hire the right candidate. Having spoken with hiring managers (and from our own experience), we’ve seen that it takes less than 30 days on average to hire quality candidates through job referrals, compared to the 2 or 3 months you may take to hire an employee though job postings or through a career site.

Hiring advice no.2 – Reduce expenses using job referrals

Here’s something that’s helped us when looking for quality candidates – “A referred candidate is a cheaper hire than a candidate who has been hired through the traditional methods”. Even after you factor in a referral bonus, compared to the agency fees or the money you spend advertising on various job boards, you would be saving a whole lot more using job referrals as your main source of hiring.

Hiring advice no.3 – Aim for quality candidates over the quantity of applications received

We could not stress this enough – “Quality over quantity!”. You may get 50 applicants when you post that open position through a job site, but how many of those are quality candidates? Job referrals not only help you reduce clutter, but it’s also one of the creative ways to source strong candidates when you have a hard-to-fill position at the organization.

Hiring advice no.4 – Don’t forget to respond to the referrals

It’s very easy for job referrals to fall through the cracks, and sometimes the hiring manager or HR may forget to respond to the referee for recommending a prospective candidate. Take that extra second in your day to thank the employee for their referral and give them a status update, whether you end up hiring the candidate or not. This way you are ensuring the employee referral program does not fizzle out due to a lack of response from your end.

Hiring advice no.5 – Recognize your employees for making great referrals

Employees appreciate that referrals bonus, but they also appreciate it when their contribution to a new hire is being openly recognized throughout the organization. It also spreads awareness of the job referral program you have in place at your company and will encourage the other employees to take part in it as well.

Why are job referrals important?

Let’s take a look at some of the ways it helps the employers streamline the recruiting process and hire the right people.

I. Job referrals create a sense of loyalty for current and future employees

Quality candidates are hard to find and even harder to retain. Some great tips to hire the right employee would be to use your internal referral system and encourage the current employees to approach you with suggestions on whom to hire. Job referrals are not only one of the most creative ways to source candidates, but also a way to ensure that you hire candidates who will stay at the organization longer. This is due to the fact that the hired employee will feel better about working for an organization when they have first-hand information on the company and work culture from the person who referred them. This not only creates a sense of community within the organization between old and new hires, but this also encourages current employees to become more involved in the hiring decisions.

II. Job referrals make the onboarding process smoother

A referred candidate – especially if they have been referred by a current employee - is easier to onboard because they feel free to ask questions to someone other than their boss as they onboard. This helps the candidate integrate into the company culture quickly, leaving more room for you, the hiring manager to offer support in other areas like training the new employee. Bonus hiring advice: make sure that you leave the communication channels open with the candidate, so that they feel comfortable enough to pose those onboarding questions. This is also a great way to encourage new and existing employees and increase their overall job satisfaction.

III. Job referrals cut out the middlemen

This is a no-brainer! Want quality candidates with minimum chaos? Instead of going through multiple channels of hiring and ending up with a sense of dissatisfaction or an employee who might not be the right fit, ask your current employees for referrals. Instead of spending thousands of dollars on retaining external recruitment services, create an efficient and effective referral program within the organization, and watch how you get thoroughly vetted, quality candidates.

Job referrals have always been number one on our list of creative ways to source candidates. The value of job referrals surpasses the value of other hiring channels, by delivering high quality candidates that incur low costs to the company. The next time you are faced with questions like – “Why are job referrals important?”, “What are the best tips to hire the right employee?” or “What are the creative ways to source candidates?” – we hope that the hiring advice that we’ve given you here will act as a trusty guide to ensure that you don’