The benefits of Referral Recruitment

Referral recruitment. Employee-recruits-employee. Via-via recruitment. This form of recruitment is still lacking in an almost no labour market communication plan. It’s logical because referral recruitment offers many advantages.

1. Higher return

Most applications still come in through the ‘work at’ site and the job boards. However, if we look at the number of filled vacancies, it turns out that no less than 40% of the vacancies are filled by candidates who have entered through the referral channel. In comparison, only 15% of the filled vacancies come from candidates via job boards.

2. Higher quality

Employees think twice before recommending someone. After all, their own reputation is also at stake. They carefully consider whether the proposed candidate fits the company and job profile. As a result, the quality of the proposed candidates is often higher.

3. Less work for the recruiter

The employee takes a lot of work off the recruiter’s hands: he/she takes care of the pre-selection, and helps the recruiter ‘sell’ the job and the company.

4. Candidate pooling

If properly designed and implemented, a referral programme can generate a continuous source of potential talent, even if there aren’t always concrete vacancies.

5. Referrals stay longer

Because the pre-selection is better, and the candidate is brought in on the basis of authentic stories, the expectations and the ‘fit’ are usually better. As a result, it appears that employees remain in employment longer after the referral.

Employees who make an active effort to recruit other employees are often more involved, and therefore ambassadors for the organisation. Often these employees stay longer with the company. The degree of success of a referral programme is therefore a good indicator of employee engagement in the company.

6. Vacancies are filled faster

Research shows that a candidate who came into contact with the company via a referral started working within 29 days on average. It took an average of 39 days via a vacancy bank, and 55 days via the ‘work at’ site.