MightyRecruiterHow Employee Referrals Play a Role in Your Larger Talent Acquisition Strategy
If you were trying to get in shape, you wouldn’t just do bicep curls, right Unless for some reason you only cared about upper arm strength, you would probably shake it up a little more. Perhaps some cardio on some days, yoga and ab exercises on others. Why Because you know that the best way to a better body is a well-rounded routine that takes a number of different approaches. The same is true when it comes to businesses, specifically regarding employee referrals and talent acquisition strategy. Employee referrals are an effective way to bring in quality job candidates that, in a way, have already been vetted by your employees and may be a better cultural fit than other candidates. However, employee referrals should not be the only component of your talent acquisition strategy. Read on to understand the benefits to using an employee referral program and when it is appropriate to source candidates using other methods.
Benefits of an Employee Referral Program and Why It Works
Employee referral programs are often more successful at returning high-quality candidates because the candidates already have the stamp of approval from the employee that referred them. With better candidates, the time it takes to hire a new employee is sometimes decreased. Compared to some other methods of hiring, employee referral programs also cost significantly less.
Employee referral programs work so well because of the personal aspect to them. They offer the employer and the candidate a more authentic experience and allow employees to feel like a vital part of the company. The addition of employee incentives is yet another way to motivate your employees to bring in great new talent. With the cost-savings and other positives to this method, it is important to understand the relationship between employee referrals and talent acquisition strategy.
When Time Constraints or Position Details Require Other Methods
Despite its benefits, an employee referral program is not always the right answer. Though candidates identified through employee referrals may result in faster hires, this is dependent on the quality of candidate that is referred, which is something that cannot always be predicted or planned. If there is not much time to work with, it is sometimes a better strategy to use multiple different sourcing methods. Unless you have a referred candidate in mind, you should think about supplementing your strategy with the help of a recruiter, posting job ads or other tactics. To make employee referral programs work in this situation, some employers have a practice of soliciting employee referrals even if there is no position open at the moment. This guarantees a pool of great candidates that can be drawn from when there is a need.
Sometimes the details of the open position can decide if an employee referral program is a fitting way to find a candidate. Positions requiring more specific technical skills are one example where other recruiting methods might work better.
Sophisticated Search as a Natural Complement to an Employee Referral Program
Using sophisticated search methods cannot give you the full, nuanced picture of who a candidate is, but they can assist recruiters in weeding through a large amount of resumes to find the individuals that come closer to what an employer is looking for. The power of semantic search can narrow down a mountain of resumes into a select few that a recruiter can then evaluate more carefully. Search-based hiring practices work perfectly in conjunction with employee referrals and talent acquisition strategy.
Potential Issues With an Employee Referral Program
The link between employee referrals and talent acquisition strategy is a strong one, but not without some issues. There are instances when an employee referral program is not the best choice. In addition to the problems with implementing this method in time-sensitive situations, it may be possible to have too many employee referrals. While this is not necessarily a bad thing, it can result in a large amount of the same type of candidates. It can be beneficial when employees are united around common goals and values, but diversity in experience and opinions is also very important. Another possible downside to employee referral programs is that they are not the lowest-cost method. Submitting job ads is the best option from a cost standpoint.
Employee referrals and talent acquisition strategy go hand in hand, but an employee referral program should not be your sole method for finding new candidates. For additional information that can help build your team and grow your business, browse through the other articles and resources on Mighty Recruiter.