By Gary Berney, Marketing Manager, HireUp
You’re trying to attract the best talent to your company, so you make sure you put your best foot forward, talking about the benefits of working for your company, the cool working environment, the central location, etc, etc.
They are all worth mentioning but a lot of candidates will not trust your perception of the company so they’ll look elsewhere, perhaps to Glassdoor and other web forums. But they’ll also know that this doesn’t always give an accurate picture of a company and what it’s truly like to work for. To get the inside track and be confident of applying for a company they want to be a part of, a candidate needs to chat to people working in it.
‘Candidates will ask friends and family if they know anybody at the company to get a truly authentic view of the company’. It was this view of the candidate and their journey towards applying for a company which really struck accord with me as I worked with a client to improve their employee referrals.
My client, working within talent acquisition and having described this process, then went on to say that’s why we’re looking to improve our referral programme.
“It’s the ‘warts and all’ version that a candidate receives from that employee which determines whether someone will apply for a role or not. This in turn means the desire of the candidate to work for the company has already been established. It’s not yet another CV from a job site, this is a candidate the employee thinks would be suitable for the vacant role and it’s a candidate that understands the positives and negatives of working for the company.”
The results from a great employee referral programme back this up. Referred candidates are 5 times more likely to be a successful candidate. Our own stats show we’re currently achieving 60% of referral candidates going through to interview. Industry stats show that hiring via referral is 55% faster than traditional recruitment.
The good news doesn’t stop there. Referred candidates stay up to 20% longer with the company, as does the employee referring them. The knock on effect is huge in relation to retention numbers and provides Talent Acquisition with the breathing space to make better appointments from other recruitment channels.
It means the ‘warts and all’ approach is by far the most effective recruitment approach. Every candidate knows there will be aspects of the job and company they won’t like. If they can be made aware of these before walking through the door it means they don’t become disgruntled and looking to depart quickly. Having spent big money on recruitment, on-boarding, on-going training etc, you want your new employees to stay as long as possible. Knowing they’ve been told the ‘warts and all’ version of the company should give you, as a recruiter, the peace of mind.
Visit https://hireuponline.com to book a 15 min demo of HireUp.
HireUp is an award winning cloud based solution which allows companies to seamlessly manage their employee referral programmes, driving employee engagement & retention, increasing speed to hire and reducing recruitment costs.
