News Referral networks beneficial for employers Tuesday, 09 February 2010 With business confidence rising and employers once again looking to hire, employers should concentrate their energies on using their referral networks to find quality staff, according to New Zealand general manager of specialist recruitment firm Robert Half, Megan Alexander. One of the interesting features of the recent recession was that while there was an increase in the number of people job-searching, quality candidates were even harder to find than usual, as the uncertainty led them to sit tight in their jobs. “Now that employers are once again looking to hire, they are under more pressure to find the right candidates and get them on their books ahead of the competition,” Ms Alexander said. “But employers aren’t helping themselves. They’re sifting through applications from unqualified candidates and writing ads for job boards and publications that don’t necessarily deliver on the quality of talent they need. “Instead, employers should be using their networks and giving existing staff incentives to refer good people who they know would enjoy working with the company.” Ms Alexander said that employee referral incentives work on the premise that staff socialise with like-minded people, who will also be good employees. However, employees don’t use these incentives much, because they often don’t remember they are available. “Employers need to do more than remind staff that these incentives exist. It would be easy to boost the bounty by $1000 or so, but employers need to think longer-term.” There are many ways to encourage referrals from staff, she said. “Robert Half is a case in point. We regularly run internal surveys that give staff the opportunity to say what is good about working for Robert Half, in their own words. This motivates them to become advocates of our employer brand, which means they will tell other quality people about us.” Given that employers are only now starting to hire permanent staff, the need to find the right candidate has become even more important as they start catching up on projects that have been on hold for a year, or even 18 months, Ms Alexander said. But because they have spent so much time in economic survival mode over the past 18 months or so, many of them have neglected their referral networks. As well as paying attention to staff and informal referral networks, they should ensure they have a solid relationship with a capable recruitment firm whose judgement and professionalism they trust, she said. “Some employers think using a recruitment firm to find staff is expensive, but when employers are under pressure to hire the right candidate, it can be cost-effective to have someone else screen them, and present only good quality candidates.” “Good recruitment firms focus on building long-term networks with quality candidates rather than simply waiting for applications in response to an advert, and so will have a much better network of good quality candidates than the employer may be able to access alone.”