Do you want a job in the best companies? Employee Referrals Are Your Best Option

If you thought artificial intelligence (AI) was becoming the only person making hiring decisions and that the days of human involvement were numbered, think again. Companies from all sectors are choosing people-centered hiring and employee networks make up the majority of some companies’ hiring pool.

Hiring through employee networks, recommendations and referrals helps keep hiring costs under control, reduces attrition and finds candidates with a better cultural fit, say companies like Zomato. Intuit, SuchPublicis Sapient and Panasonic Life Solutions, and human resources experts.

“You can’t apply to Zomato; You have to be found by Zomato. It’s the reason you won’t find job openings on our careers page, because we believe in referrals from our own team. Recruitment is the most important role that every individual plays at Zomato,” said Niharika Mohanty, vice president of human resources at Zomato, which has 11,000 employees.

“We do not rely on AI in our hiring process,” Mohanty added.

American software company Intuit, which has a workforce of 1,800 in India, hires one in three employees through referrals.

Mohan Kumar, Director of Talent Acquisition, said: “Employee referrals are a very important channel for us to access top talent; Who better to recommend top talent than our own internal talent? At the French multinational Thales, around 20% of total hiring in India in the last three years has gone through employee referenceswhich shows that employees are more involved in the process and feel empowered to recommend talent, said Sekhar Sahay, India HR director at Thales, which has 2,200 employees in the country. Employee referrals are gaining importance as an effective strategy for attracting top staff. candidates who are culturally compatible and tend to stay longer, which helps contain attrition.

According to Arvind Usretay, regional client manager for Asia at global human resources consultancy Mercer, employee referrals account for 25% to 50% of hires across companies. “Some distinct advantages of employee referrals include low cost of hiring, early onboarding, higher offer acceptance rate, and increased productivity,” he said.

LinkedIn’s Global Talent Trends 2023 report showed that referred candidates are four times more likely to be hired than other applicants. This underlines the effectiveness of this recruiting method in attracting top talent.

Less wear, more commitment

“When a trusted colleague shares the company’s value proposition with a candidate, the result is more engaged candidates. This is because someone the candidate knows and trusts has already given the candidate a positive impression of the company,” said Intuit’s Kumar.

According to Thales’ Sahay, once onboarded, new employees tend to show better retention rates as they have a clear expectation of their new workplace, making the transition and adaptation easier.

Agrees Kameshwari Rao, chief people officer at Publicis Sapient, a digital business transformation company based in Boston, United States, with 20,000 employees worldwide. What sets referrals apart is the built-in trust factor: when someone refers a candidate, the initial level of screening is pre-handled, making the process more reliable than starting from scratch. The success of the program is because it is open and adaptable to all levels of hiring, Rao said.

“Over time, our approach has become more focused and intentional. We now focus on specific skills, experience and communities through a more strategic referral recruiting process. Referrals have become more than just a recruiting method – they are an integral part of how we build and shape our teams,” Rao said.

Adarsh ​​Mishra, CHRO of diversified technology company Panasonic Life Solutions India, which has around 11,000 employees in and outside India, said that apart from cost savings in sourcing talent, one of the biggest benefits of employee referrals have been the culture. building.

“Referrals help us reach out to potential candidates who match the cultural DNA of the organization and are willing to learn (continuous learning process), live (overall well-being) and achieve (goal-oriented),” Mishra said. “Once an employee refers a candidate, we also understand whether the candidate fits our leadership principles. Employee referrals have also helped us avoid candidate churn, which is common across the industry.”