Have you ever tried to help a friend get a job at a company where you’ve worked for years? But got no response from the HR team? It’s irritating when your friend gets an interview through a recruitment agency. Does this sound familiar? If so, you’re not alone. Many people face similar situations, feeling sidelined by their own companies.
Sure. HR is arrogant. May be they have nexus with recruitment agencies? Sounds familiar? Read on.
First let me side step the question of nexus and HR person getting a cut from the recruitment agency. I do not know if it exists. I have been a hiring manager, not on HR team side . Let me talk about what typically goes wrong when employees refer candidates.
First, consider the recruitment team. HR recruitment teams are usually small, with only 2-3 members for a company with 1,000 employees. If the company has a 5% resignation rate and a 20% growth rate, you can guess how many job openings will be there. Now, think about the success rate. To fill one job for an experienced technical employee, they might need to interview 5 to 20 people. This means many interviews need to be scheduled and rescheduled.
Ineffective Email Subject Lines
Now, let’s talk about how emails are sent when referring a friend. You might send an email with the subject “Resume of my friend”. And your friend might send one with the subject “My Resume.” Then you forward it to HR. It can be frustrating for HR to see emails with subjects like “My Resume,” “My Friend’s Resume,” and “As Discussed,” These subject lines don’t convey any useful information. And there are many such emails from you and other valuable employees.
Imagine if 50% of the organization refers friends and they do this every few days or weeks. You can imagine the email traffic. Looking at these emails, figuring them out, and matching them to job openings is a lot of work.
Improving Email Subject Lines
Instead, you could send an email with the subject line “Profile of 5 years in Industrial Automation, Software Development – Technical Lead Role”. Think about how much easier that would make things for the HR team.
Issues with Referral Intranet Portals
Next, let’s talk about referral intranet portals. Yes, these portals exist, but the information is not always up to date. Hiring managers often don’t update all the job openings. Instead, it’s easier to ask the hiring team or share the information with the informally same group to get referrals.
Preference for Recruitment Agencies
When a company is hiring, they often look at the most recent resumes first and might ask a hiring agency to help. It’s easier for the HR team if they get help from this agency. Unless you are an insider in the group, your referral resume might not reach the team with actual needs. You will never know how many actual open positions exist in your organization.
Lack of Resume Filtering by Employees
Another issue is that employees often do not filter the resumes they receive. When you get a friend’s resume, how often do you open it before forwarding it? Suppose you know that your friend may not be up to the mark. Would you filter it at your level, or would you still send it to try your luck? There’s often no accountability in this process, right?
Failure to Follow Up
Employees also do not follow up and close the loop. HRs often pick the most recently sent profiles. A resume sent some time ago might be outdated because the candidate may have got a job somewhere else. If you sent a resume without a specific job opening in mind, you would need to put in a lot of effort to follow up. The referral might get a call for an interview for one role, and after that, many employees give up. They think they’ve done enough for their friend by getting them one interview chance. For another position, could the same person be considered? Who should push and make it happen?
The Advantages of Working with Agencies
Working with agencies makes things easier. When the hiring manager needs help, the recruitment team only talks to one person from the agency. This person takes care of everything. Agencies don’t send random resumes to be stored and looked at later. They only send resumes when needed, and they make sure the information is current. Agencies also follow up and keep track of hiring needs, sending the right profiles. Some people think the recruitment team doesn’t have much power, but agencies respect and value them. Working with agencies is much better than dealing with referral candidates.
Conclusion
If you are an employee who intends to refer friends, you need to understand this bigger picture. You will be more effective in referring your friends for employment from now on.
