How to Design an Employee Referral Program to Hire Top Talent

Building a talented team is a never-ending process.

Qualified candidates can be hard to find in today's market. Luckily for hiring managers, there's a simple recruiting process to improve the quality and quantity of candidates: turn all of your employees into your own recruiting army.

Your employees are gold. They are brilliant and exceptional people. They know your business inside out. That's why referrals are a proven recruiting strategy.

While all companies find and source candidates in their own way, referrals can help and they have the most impact on employee retention. Using employee referral software to create an employee referral program is an important part of your recruiting program. This can be your secret sauce when recruiting talent for your business.

What is an Employee Referral Program?

Employee referral is a recruiting tactic used by many recruiting and human resource departments that leverages an organization's current team members to reach and identify potential candidates in their network through the word of mouth and sharing on social networks.

Establishing a buddy program can also help hiring managers find, screen, and score talent much faster and with long-term placement success. The best programs are those that motivate their employees and offer recognition, not to mention that they require little effort from your employees.

Employee Referral Recruitment Strategies

Whatever your approach to recruiting, it's hard to deny that referrals are a great source of hiring. If you're wondering how to incorporate an employee referral program into your hiring process, here are 11 ideas to try.

1. Include a sourcing jam in your onboarding process

There is magic in the air during a new employee's first few weeks on the job. Capitalize on their enthusiasm and eagerness. Put time on calendars during your new hires' onboarding experience in the first 30 days to talk to them about who they think would be a good fit for the company.

It's the perfect time to win the hearts of your new hires. They're excited about the role and the company, and it's on their minds.

2. Host happy hours or monthly or quarterly recruiting events

This is a great, informal way for employees to invite people they want to recommend to get to know potential candidates in a low-key, no-pressure setting.

For a human touch, highlight recent internships and share details of how an employee was referred, their journey to being hired, and their contributions to the team.

3. Locate your incentives

For multi-city or global companies, leverage local knowledge and create employee referral programs to engage your employees at this level.

Is there a particular company or product only available in Chicago? Do your employees enjoy working with local businesses? What is meaningful to people in one market may not have the same impact in other areas.

4. Use gamification

Add an element of competition by giving employees points via gamification for every action they take, and notify them of changes in the status of their referrals.

5. Make a charitable donation

By making recommendations, employees feel good. Maximize those feelings of 'feel good' by allowing employees to donate a portion of their referral bonus to a charity of their choice, and match the amount.

6. Give bonuses or swag on the spot

One of the reasons employees don't refer more candidates is because they don't know what positions are open within the company. Include HR in monthly meetings and educate employees on all quality positions available.

To encourage your employees to make referrals, give away cash on the spot, an extra paid day off, free lunch, or fun SWAGs like shirts or Stanley water bottles.

7. Turn to social media

Help your employees make recommendations and make things easier by creating content based on recruitment on social networks. Send an internal email with your best jobs every week. Include a copy of social media that your employees can paste on their LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter profiles and share with their followers for open positions.

8. Build a culture around referrals

Create a page/section dedicated to you...