Is referral recruiting alive in IT?

Recruiting has always been a difficult job. If we are talking about a highly specialized market, for example, the IT sector, the situation is exacerbated. All my friends HR are constantly in search of new candidates, and some of my friends developers are sometimes in search of work. Why can they not converge?

The specifics of the IT market

I will not describe the reasons for the high demand for IT specialists. These are obvious things, such as the growth of the industry, the outsourcing market, etc. More importantly, all this causes a huge demand for highly qualified IT specialists.

How is the issue of providing the necessary personnel resolved today and why are there so few of them? Recruiters call such reasons:

• qualified personnel are trained very slowly, especially in comparison with the demand for them;
• in the educational system of the country there are shortcomings that do not take into account the features of economic development and the corresponding needs for personnel;
• the working conditions offered by foreign companies are very attractive, therefore, upon reaching a competitive level, IT specialists leave the country or work remotely for foreign employers.

At the moment, demand is several times ahead of supply, which leads to such situations:

• young specialists are accepted with the prospect of training, and there are risks of unjustified trust;
• professionally weak applicants draw beautiful resumes with a low level of real experience, the price of an error for such a lie is sometimes too high;
• some millennials show high salary expectations, not really bothering with their pay;
• middle peasants hold on to their seats and are not very interested in changing jobs, being satisfied with their position;
• Experienced professionals open their own businesses or work independently with foreign companies.

All this makes us look for new ways to resolve issues with staff selection. What options work now?

List of IT Recruiter

• Recruiting agencies, private recruiters (freelancers). Candidates who can be intercepted wander into their bases.
• Thematic media platforms. With their help, about 10% of the total number of candidates is involved. Placement of vacancies on such resources is often paid.
• Exchanges for freelancers. Upwork, Freelancer.com, Fiverr.com, Pchel.net, Fl.ru. Effectively work when the company enters new markets. However, freelancers are not always suitable for employers.
• Universities, specialized courses, youth organizations. The resource is focused on companies that are ready to give a chance to promising talents.
• Job Sites: HeadHunter, Rabota, SuperJob. They do not concentrate on the target audience, so recruiters have to process a lot of data. Access to the database of resumes and placement of vacancies on websites have become paid services.
• Headhunting. It concerns working professionals, however, will the company have enough funds for luring and is there a risk that the genius simply will not get along in another environment?
• Referral recruiting.

The last paragraph will dwell in more detail. Because it contains the answer to the question from the first paragraph: why job seekers and employers cannot agree in any way? Can I help them and make money on this? Theoretically, yes.

Referral Recruiting

This method is based on the principles of networking. A person’s environment is formed in accordance with his character, behavior, skill level and other features, on the basis of “similar to similar”. Therefore, the recommendation received from a professional is a kind of quality mark for the candidate, an indicator of his potential ability to adapt to this company, confirmation of the results of collaboration, etc.

For closing vacancies, connections between company employees and external voluntary recruiters are used, to the mutual benefit of all parties: the company receives a professional with a recommendation, a candidate - a new job, and a referral - a bonus for a recommendation.

Referral recruiting is especially effective for closing deficit positions, which are closed for too long in the usual way.

You can find out about vacancies in communities, groups, newsletters, or through friends or through specialized services: Perks WW , EmployeeReferrals.com , Jobvite Refer , Simppler , RolePoint , etc. One can not help but mention ongoing programs in giants such as Microsoft with their with the slogan “Do you see yourself in others?”, Google - “Good people know other good people”, Accenture and Southwest, Apple.

According to the recruiting company The A-List, back in 2012, referral (48%) was in first place among sources of job search, while the rate of job satisfaction was also the highest - 38.4%.

In Russia, many recruiters also resorted to recommendations at least once, but in most they see such a selection method as one of many, no more. Nevertheless, many companies actively and successfully applied referral programs, for example, the Teremok restaurant chain, the Euroset company, etc. ...

Referral recruiting was a highlight of the work of the Pruffi recruitment agency. This agency, using the Pruffi Friends application , which allowed you to recommend friends for declared vacancies and receive bonuses, showed that recruiting can become a business on social networks. A similar system was taken as a basis and other services.

Ukrainian project Bonus.WorkIt was launched at the beginning of the year and in three months gathered a decent set of companies. It is promoted with the help of information about rather impressive bonuses, which reach up to $ 1000 for a successful recommendation (this was also done in Pruffi Friends). Now an affiliate program has been created there and the creators are actively inviting IT sites with Ukrainian traffic, offering a new monetization model.

Unfortunately, the results of the work, in terms of closing vacancies, of such services are unknown. Periodically, they talk about the lucky ones who took their bonus, but do not share the full statistics. There is an assumption that referral recruiting works better in the West, and with all its pleasant idea, it is by no means a panacea in the search for personnel and is more of an auxiliary tool. And specialized services are an opportunity to receive pleasant bonuses for those who already had a lot of networking in the IT environment.

Write in the comments if someone at least once passed the bonus from the recommendation of a friend or acquaintance? Or maybe someone found a job like that? How effective is this method and related services?