Can Employee Referrals Shorten The Employee Hiring Cycle?
Finding quality talent is becoming the biggest roadblock for organizations as they seek to grow and expand the scope of their operations. While bigger corporations have the capacity to absorb the cost and time involved in filling an open position, an empty role could be disastrous for a smaller organization. Although it may seem that larger organizations enjoy a huge advantage over smaller ones while hiring talent, the reality is that by employing a strategic mix of technology and recruitment initiatives, any organization can get their hiring needs in place without emptying their pockets.
The most effective way to hire good talent with minimum cost and effort, is to have a successfully running employee referral program. An ongoing employee referral program means that there is always a pipeline of good candidates available who can be contacted for job openings. Existing employees have a first-hand understanding of your organizational culture and hence are able to assess with greater accuracy which among their professional or personal contacts might be best suited to the open position. A referred candidate always stands a better chance of being selected since they have been pre screened by an insider, an employee who understands the role and the organization better than anyone else.
Employee referrals are also the best means to access passive candidates who are otherwise difficult to locate since they are not actively looking for a job change. Employees, by reaching out to their friends and professional contacts help spread the word about the organization and help to draw passive candidates who might not be interested in discussing job opportunities with a recruiter but will be willing to listen to a friend with an open mind. These passive candidates can be drawn into considering the offer on hand much faster by using the referring employee as the anchor rather than an impersonal third party.
For organizations looking to recruit heavily, any time saved while hiring translates directly into savings. Since referral hires come from a trusted source like employees, the hiring process works much faster with very little time gap between interview to offer to acceptance. Since they are prescreened by employees for fitment, recruiters have to spend less time going through a heap of resumes to find ones that match the job description.
It is generally assumed that fast hiring does not translate into good hiring and eventually the organization has to bear the brunt of wrong hiring. But in the case of employee referrals, fast hiring in most cases does translate into good hiring as the legwork is done by someone closest to the job at hand-the employee. So if you are looking to hire fast without incurring huge recruitment costs, asking employees to refer is your safest bet.
