Referrals are the secret ingredient of effective recruitment. The case is clear: leveraging your employees’ wisdom is simply a better way to assemble a winning team than relying on the CV slush pile. But if you’re already on board with the idea that yes, referral platforms like Intrro are amazing, how can you make the case to your colleagues?

Choose your participants wisely 

Any one of your employees might know someone brilliant and could pull a referral rabbit from their hat. But it’s worth thinking carefully about which of your employees to introduce to Intrro, as engagement levels may vary. By targeting key personnel in a focused approach, you might stand a better chance of getting ‘buy-in’ and meeting your objectives.

Here are three key groups to consider when inviting your first participants.‍

Leaders

Even with the best will in the world, a referral strategy can’t be rubber-stamped without getting key executives on board. The solution? You need to dust off some data and use it to sell the benefits of referrals to senior staff.

Here are some tips on the sorts of themes you can cover in order to get your senior team excited:

• Return on investment. Hiring, training and retaining people costs money, so naturally every executive team wants their staff to be firing on all cylinders for as long as possible. You could refer to Employee Lifetime Value (ELTV) in your nifty PowerPoint presentation; this basically refers to an employee’s output levels relative to how long they spend with the company. A smart referral policy means a new hire will take less time to get up to speed; they’ll have a higher performance ceiling; and they’ll stay for longer at the peak of their powers.
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• More time to get on with work. Recruiting staff is often labour-intensive and expensive. We all know about the high cost-per-hire of getting new staff on board, but what about the ‘opportunity loss’ of pulling existing staff away from their jobs? It takes time to conduct an interview and test candidates, but a smart and focused referral process can reduce the likelihood of a long, drawn-out search.
• Cross-functional collaboration. The referral process is an opportunity for different personnel to collaborate where ordinarily this might not happen. For example, a product manager might refer a backend engineer, or a sales manager might refer a superhero. By spelling out the benefits of bonding as a team, your leadership team may be persuaded that the road to glory is paved with Intrro.
  

Underrepresented groups

A diverse workforce means fresh perspectives, better morale and an opportunity to prove to your recruitment team that your company’s organisational culture matters. One way to increase the diversity at your workplace is to invite participants from underrepresented groups on day one. It’s worth keeping in mind that referrals can often result in a clustering of leads from the same background. By setting out your hiring priorities early – such as interviewing a diverse set of candidates in terms of ethnicity, gender and social class – you will be able to use employee referral platforms like Intrro more effectively.

Intrro, as well as tools like Canvas, can also help you understand the diversity of your pipeline, and for example, discover how people self-identify. Intrro can help you build data to measure the success of these initiatives, which could inform your efforts to reduce bias and improve pass-through rates.‍

New joiners

A new starter at a company will often be highly engaged, and perhaps more likely to make a referral because they’re keen to make an impression. Not only are they bright-eyed and bushy-tailed; they’ve already got a strong relationship with the recruiting team (because they were hired by them). This ‘honeymoon period’ may last between 45 and 90 days, so it’s worth making sure Intrro is front-of-mind early doors when you hire someone. 

Plus, getting into the habit of introducing Intrro when you on-board new starters helps to build a ritual, or muscle memory, and you can build a hiring routine and a virtuous circle of talent leading to talent.

Let Intrro revolutionise the way you recruit

Intrro is a fantastic tool for recruiters to proactively mine their networks for the best talent, not to mention gain valuable reputational insights and useful context before reaching out to a candidate.

But enough talk. Try our free trial and see how Intrro can transform the way you hire staff.

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