Online recruitment: employees as recruiters

Enabling people to get in direct contact with each other without the need of an intermediary. That's the amazing power of the internet. It has enabled the web to impact our daily lives in a major way. Until now, however, online recruitment seemed to get stuck in the huge job boards that we're so familiar with. Of course, these job boards use the internet medium, but conceptually there's nothing new under the sun. But now we've got referral recruitment: straightforward recruitment that involves the use of one's own employees.

Referral recruitment is hot. Spotajob and Zubka have already been active in the Dutch market. Friendhunter has now been added to the list. Moreover, VNU has announced that it will launch its own referral programme, Jobadvisor. In other words, there’s a lot going on. But what exactly is referral recruitment?

Everyone’s a recruiter

The principle is as follows: in referral recruitment, open vacancies are filled by recommendations from employees. That’s nothing new: many companies pay out bonuses to employees who recommend new colleagues. But now there’s the additional factor of the internet, which uses online social networks (in particular LinkedIn, but others as well, such as Hyves), which make it possible for anyone to recommend acquaintances for vacancies. And this isn’t restricted to your own employer. Candidates are also being recommended by other companies. Upon placement, the above-mentioned referral services pay out a bonus to those who recommended the candidate.

It’s an interesting idea: everyone becomes a potential recruiter using his or her own network. One of the major advantages of this kind of ‘social recruitment’ is that those who recommend a candidate know this candidate (to a certain degree). Your chance of making a match is therefore greater, since you’re not recommending just any person. So this is not only a matter of recruiting, but also clearly involves a certain degree of selection. What’s more, people are avoiding traditional recruitment and selection agencies because their services entail such high costs.

Create your own network

Referral recruitment services offer users the opportunity to recommend acquaintances for open positions. This isn’t the only way to do it: employees from a certain sector can also cooperate with each other in the recruitment and selection of candidates. The Consultancy Group is such an initiative: employees from various consultancies make a joint effort to attract new candidates. They not only recruit via their personal networks, but together they constitute a communal point of contact for candidates seeking jobs in the world of consultancy.

As is the case with referral services such as Friendhunter, the bulk of the work is done by employees from The Consultancy Group. And in both recruitment methods a bonus will be paid out if the efforts result in a job placement Nevertheless, The Consultancy Group’s concept differs radically from the idea behind referral services such as Friendhunter. The latter makes use of all its existing contacts and is not bound to a single, specific sector. In addition, Friendhunter actively dispatches ‘recruiters’ to approach potential candidates, whereas The Consultancy Group is limited to one, communal point of contact.

On the other hand, however, The Consultancy Group provides job-seekers with much more than just a vacancy. They offer information about the entire consultancy sector, they provide company profiles and candidates receive career advice from the consultants of participating parties. And because the initiative is supported by a broad group of consultancy companies, you can be sure their advice is not a disguised sales pitch that ultimately leads to one and the same employer. Moreover, candidates approach The Consultancy Group on their own volition, and not because ‘friends’ think they stand to earn a bit of pocket money.

Employees recruit, also for competitors

Only the future can tell how successful these two recruitment methods will be in the Netherlands (online referral services have already turned out to be extremely successful in other countries). It is interesting to observe that the internet is also creating new opportunities in the field of recruitment, making the old rules of the game seem obsolete. On the one hand, employees are deployed to recruit candidates, and not only for their own employers. And on the other hand, parties who normally compete for the most suitable candidate are now making a joint effort. What lesson is to be learned by employers who are fed up with endlessly combing through vacancy databases in search of suitable candidates? Use your employees. And maybe even your competitor’s employees.

1376 views| 0 Comments| | Add to social bookmarking