Create an Employee Referral Program that Works in 7 Easy Steps

It seems like all that HR folks, or really anyone who has anything to do with hiring, want to talk to me about these days are job boards. I'm constantly being bombarded with the same questions: What new job boards are worth their time? What job boards are still performing well? How they can optimize job boards to get more applicants?

Really, I can't blame them. Whenever we're looking to increase applicant flow, job boards seem like the best bet. Every time you're reviewing an application, chances are the source of application is from some job board.

But just because the majority of your applicants are coming from job boards, does that mean the majority of your hires are?

I've talked a lot about how I believe that even more important than tracking source of applicants, you should be tracking source of hire. By tracking source of hire, you'll see where your best and most qualified applicants are coming from, giving you a clearer vision of where to spend your time and money. Once you start looking at that, I think you'll be surprised what you find... I know I was.

Best source of hire? Employee Referrals.

In a study of over one million applicants, I learned that while job boards are still the best source of applicants, Employee Referrals were hands down the best source of hires. What was even more surprising about this study was that most of these companies had Employee Referrals as the best source of hire without even trying.

Sure they might have had some form of Employee Referral program running in the background of their hiring strategy, but it really wasn't anything they had been paying attention to or intentionally driving.

I see this as a huge missed opportunity on their part. That's why in today's video I'm going to show you how to implement an Employee Referral program for your organization that actually works and drives quality applicants.

7 Steps to Creating an Effective Employee Referral Program:

1. Stop being passive about Employee Referrals.
2. Help your employees market your company's job openings.
3. Think team effort when it comes to Employee Referral programs.
4. Communicate with your team about how your Employee Referral program works.
5. Make it easy for employees to share jobs openings.
6. Track and reward Employee Referrals.
7. Make your Employee Referral program fun for your employees.

Before psyching yourself out thinking you need to purchase some sort of Employee Referral software for your company, give these steps a try, and track your source of hires for the next few months. Chances are you'll be able to create a sizable impact by simply implementing some sort of Employee Referral bonus into your organization.

Want to learn more about how we designed a plug-and-play employee referral system for you? It automatically tracks applicants referred by employees for easy rewarding. Click here to read more and schedule a demo to see how it works.