Referral programs have many advantages. For businesses, they can significantly save time, effort, and money on recruitment.
“The referral program saves time on directly searching for candidates on specialized sites, for which, of course, it is more convenient,” says Dmitry Dudarev, director of human resources at the PR Development Company (CROS). It greatly simplifies the process and already at the short entry to those who are not suitable for this particular position.
In order for current employees to seek to recommend a vacancy to their friends and acquaintances, companies often use material incentives.
According to a study carried out by the SuperJob portal, 44 percent of companies that practice referral programs pay cash bonuses to employees if the candidate who came through the recommendation obtained a position. However, even in the absence of a material reward, employees are willing to recommend their acquaintances if the company has a strong brand and employees are proud of it.
“Material motivation can take place, but often a strong company brand is enough,” Dmitry Dudarev believes.
According to SuperJob data, employees “by recommendation” are most often recruited for vacancies in retail, for example, to work in warehouses. In industry and construction, skilled workers are often selected in this way. Referral programs are also used when there is a need to recruit line staff, especially for office work. Also, such a recruitment scheme is very suitable if you need to attract highly qualified or limited specialists.
“Often in IT companies, employees willingly hire those with whom they studied together, did an internship or worked somewhere together,” says Roman Tyshkovsky, managing partner at consulting firm Odgers Berndtson. “But, in In general, referral programs are a good tool for any industry. “.
Referral programs have another significant advantage: they help ease the stress on the team caused by the arrival of a new person. An employee who gets a job on the recommendation of a colleague is not a “dark horse” and more easily joins the team. In addition, according to experts, a team that includes friends, and not just colleagues, is more motivated, has a stable emotional climate, and is generally more loyal to the company.
“One of the reasons why the number of companies that practice referral programs has increased is that job seekers often cannot choose which particular company is best for them,” says the founder and coordinator of the research center ” RuGenerations – Russian School of Theory generations” Evgenia Shamis.- It can be difficult for a person to understand whether the promises of a particular company can be trusted, whether the information about a vacancy will correspond to reality, etc. In a situation where a loved one recommends a vacancy, many doubts will disappear. Such a person will speak without embellishment about additional nuances and details of future work, opportunities and “pitfalls” in advance, even before the first interview.
According to the RuGenerations research center, for today’s youth, it’s not only important to find a job, but also to find a favorite thing. This is very different from the goals that people born in the 1990s aspired to.
“A favorite job implies good people nearby and good relations with them,” says Evgenia Shamis. “It turns out that here again a person who already works in a company comes to the fore and can convey better than any official information to his friend – Applicant the nuances of the upcoming work, to tell about the atmosphere in the team. In other words, to create an emotional image that will help the applicant understand if he wants to be part of the company, if he fits into it. And the important thing is to understand the opposite: how the company meets their expectations.”
The applicant who came by recommendation does not always get a place in the company, and sometimes loses his place after passing the probationary period. In this case, experts recommend conducting psychological work with the one who brought such a person, so that the current employee does not have a feeling of guilt and does not lose motivation.
“It happens that the recommended candidate does not pass the interview,” says Dmitry Dudarev. “In this case, it is very important to give feedback both directly to the candidate himself and to the employee who recommended him. In addition, sometimes the recommended The employee does not cope with the work and has to leave. It’s a lot of stress for both him and whoever recommended him. In this case, feedback is also important, its quality and timing.”
