Employee Referrals

An employee referral programme is a recruitment strategy that encourages the organisation’s employees to refer their network for open vacancies within their organisation. Employee referral programmes are often incentivised for successful hires and help the in-house recruitment team leverage the employee networks to attract high-quality talent.

Employee Referrals allow internal teams to submit candidate recommendations through a structured workflow, which can be enabled via an Applicant Tracking System (ATS), such as Eploy. Once the employee submits their referral, the candidate is evaluated by the TA team alongside other applicants. If the referred candidate is successful in the selection process, the employee who referred them becomes eligible for the ER programme reward or bonus, depending on the organisation’s policy.

An ATS can streamline the entire employee referral process by:

• Providing a dedicated referral portal or dashboard.
• Automating candidate tracking and status updates.
• Linking referrals directly to open job postings and employees who referred them.
• Managing incentives and bonuses for successfully referred candidates.
• Offering analytics to measure referral programme performance.

An ATS helps ensure the referral process is transparent, scalable, and easy to manage.

Employee Referrals are considered a highly effective channel for sourcing high-quality candidates. Harvard Business Review’s data reveals that for every 100 applicants, referrals generated 70% more good hires than non-referrals. You can learn more about the effectiveness of Employee Referrals in our blog ‘’Are you making the most from Employee Referrals?’’. 

To create a successful internal employee referrals programme:

• Clearly communicate the programme and its benefits to employees.
• Offer meaningful incentives for successful hires.
• Make it easy to refer candidates via your ATS and Employee Portal.
• Provide regular updates and transparency on referral status.
• Celebrate and recognise employees for participating.
• Using an ATS with built-in Employee Referrals functionality can simplify tracking, communication, and automation.

Read this case study to learn how a leading professional services group was able to achieve its recruitment goals by enabling employee referrals.

Employee referrals offer several advantages:

• Faster time-to-hire compared to traditional channels.
• Lower cost-per-hire.
• Higher candidate quality and better cultural fit.
• Improved employee engagement through participation in hiring.
• Increased retention rates among referral hires.

Yes, employee referral programs can significantly reduce time-to-hire. Referred candidates often move through the hiring process faster because they come pre-recommended and require less sourcing effort, helping your team fill roles more efficiently.

An Applicant Tracking System (ATS) is a powerful recruitment tool designed for in-house recruitment and talent acquisition teams. It helps you streamline the entire hiring process - from attracting top talent and managing candidates efficiently, to collaborating with hiring managers, onboarding new hires, and tracking performance metrics.

By automating manual tasks and centralising your recruitment efforts, an ATS not only enhances candidate engagement but also saves your organisation time, money, and resources. It reduces risk, improves consistency, and ultimately helps you build stronger, more effective teams.

Organisations of any size, from small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to large enterprise corporations can benefit from using an Applicant Tracking System (ATS), regardless of industry.

An ATS streamlines and automates recruitment processes, making it easier to attract, engage, hire, and onboard candidates efficiently. It also helps you manage relationships with candidates, hiring managers, and departments more effectively.

A best-of-breed ATS can support complex recruitment needs, including multiple brands within a business, varied recruitment workflows, and global hiring requirements, making it a scalable solution that grows with your organisation.

Not quite. While they’re both essential recruitment tools, an ATS and a CRM serve different purposes.

An Applicant Tracking System (ATS) is used by in-house recruitment and talent acquisition teams to manage the end-to-end hiring process. It helps you attract candidates, streamline workflows, collaborate with hiring managers, onboard new hires, and measure recruitment performance.

Candidate Relationship Management (CRM) tools focus on building and nurturing talent pipelines. It supports proactive recruitment by engaging candidates through job alerts, email, and SMS campaigns - enhancing your employer brand and keeping top talent interested.

Eploy combines the power of ATS, Recruitment CRM, onboarding, and analytics into a single web-based platform. Fully integrated with your careers site, it delivers a seamless and engaging experience for both candidates and hiring teams.

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