By Riges Younan

10 trends for recruiting in 2009 by Michael Specht

‘Referrals. Time and time again referrals provide the highest quality hire at the lowest cost.’

By Riges Younan

Good overview by Dr. John Sullivan. Number two on the list is “referral programs”

‘Reinvigorating referral programs. Despite the growth of career-related Internet sites, the highest volume and quality candidates still come from well-designed employee referral programs. While heavy adoption was initially hampered by cultural issues around the world, today such programs are proving highly effective everywhere. Key focus areas include proactively approaching key employees for referrals (program targeting), leverage non-employee referrals, making reward systems more comprehensive, immediate, and visible, and last but not least, helping employees leverage social media to restore relationships, make new relationships, and build stronger relationships. Firms to watch: AmTrust Bank, Edward Jones, Whirlpool, and Amazon.com.’

By Riges Younan

I was contacted by David Campbell from lovedigital last week to get my views on how digital & social media is impacting the recruiting industry. Listen here

how do you think it’s impacting our industry?

By Riges Younan

Part 2 of using referrals for college recruiting by Dr John Sullivan on ERE

By Riges Younan

Jason Davis and Cheezhead talk referrals and ‘how they are the lifeblood of recruiting’ you can listen here. Now, I don’t agree with Jason that referrals need to be anonymous because if I was receiving a referral for a job,  I would want to know who referred that person? and why they think they are a match? This would allow me to qualify the quality of that referral.

We are excited and delighted to announce that 2Vouch is live!

You can now access the system by going to www.2vouch.com where you can sign up for free to look for people or to make referrals.

We have had some great coverage on the blogs alreadys, including Michael Specht, Onrec and Tech Nation. Nice to be talked about… thanks guys.

We look forward to lots of feedback from users and will keep you posted on our progress.

When used effectively, referrals are probably the best way to find good people. Why?

1. Typically A grade players know and associate with other A grade players: in my experience I’ve found that when I asked high quality candidates for referrals to people in their network for a job that I was working on, the large majority of those people would refer candidates that were high quality too and I’ve often thought about why this is….I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s because people are essentially saying that I’m putting my ‘social capital’ on the line when vouching for this person and by doing this it creates a sense of accountability to ensure that the person they refer is a credible candidate.

2. Filtering & Qualification: the referrer screens the prospective candidate for you with the assistance of context; they have either worked together, were a client, or maybe a supplier etc….in other words they have seen them in action, and therefore provide a opinion with the benefit of experience of having dealt with that person. This is a very important point, as this gives you the recruiter or the employer the confidence in the candidates ability to achieve the performance outcomes for the job that your are hiring for.

3. The value of the Vouch?: we all like 3rd party endorsements, and we consider them when making purchasing decisions about many things such as: restaurants, books, music, movies, service providers and the list goes on….Employers and Recruiters make important decisions during the hiring process, and sourcing candidates from referrals particularly where people have vouched for the candidate definitely increases the conversion rate from hire to successful contributor to the company.. so it’s obvious why the preferred and most successful method of sourcing people are referrals that come with recommendations.

So when you are looking for people, don’t overlook the power of referrals.

- Riges