Is referral recruitment alive in IT?

Recruitment has always been a difficult job. If we are talking about a highly specialized market, for example, IT-sphere, the situation is aggravated. All my friends HRy are constantly looking for new candidates, and some of my fellow developers are sometimes looking for work. Why can't they come together?

The specifics of the IT market

I will not describe the reasons for the high demand for IT specialists. These are obvious things, such as the growth of the industry, the outsourcing market, etc. More importantly, all this causes a huge demand for highly qualified IT specialists.

How is the problem of providing the necessary personnel solved today and why are they so few? Recruiters name these reasons:
')

• skilled personnel are trained very slowly, especially in comparison with the demand for them;
• In the educational system of the country there are shortcomings that do not take into account the peculiarities of economic development and the corresponding personnel requirements;
• working conditions offered by foreign companies are very attractive; therefore, when they reach a competitive level, IT specialists leave the country or work remotely for foreign employers.

At the moment, demand is several times ahead of supply, which leads to such situations:

• young professionals are accepted with the prospect of training, and there are risks of unjustified trust;
• professionally weak applicants draw beautiful resumes with a low level of real experience, the cost of a mistake for such a lie can sometimes be too high;
• individual millennials demonstrate high expectations for wages, not really bothering to work it out;
• middle peasants hold on to their places and are not much interested in changing jobs, being satisfied with their position;
• experienced professionals open their own businesses or work independently with foreign companies.

All this makes it necessary to look for new ways to solve problems with the selection of personnel. What options are working now?

IT recruiter list

• Recruiting agencies, private recruiters (freelancers). Candidates who can be intercepted wander into their bases.
• Themed media platforms. With their help about 10% of the total number of candidates are attracted. Placing vacancies on such resources, often paid.
• Exchange for freelancers. Upwork, Freelancer.com, Fiverr.com, Pchel.net, Fl.ru. They work effectively when the company enters new markets. However, freelancers are not always suitable for employers.
• Universities, specialized courses, youth organizations. The resource is focused on companies that are ready to give a chance to promising talents.
• Job sites: HeadHunter, Rabota, SuperJob. They do not concentrate on the target audience, so recruiters have to process a lot of data. Access to the database of resume and placement of vacancies on the sites have become paid services.
• Headhunting. Concerning working professionals, however, will the company have enough funds for poaching and is there any risk that the genius simply will not get along in a different environment?
• Referral recruiting.

On the last paragraph we will dwell in more detail. Because in it the answer to the question from the first paragraph: why applicants and employers can not converge? Can you help them and make money on it? Theoretically yes.

Referral Recruiting

This method is based on the principles of networking. The environment of a person is formed in accordance with his character, behavior, skill level and other features, according to the principle “similar to similar”. Therefore, the recommendation received from a professional is a kind of quality mark for the candidate, an indicator of his potential ability to adapt to this company, confirmation of the results of joint work, etc.

To close vacancies, contacts between company employees and external voluntary recruiters are used, to the mutual benefit of all parties: the company receives a professional with a recommendation, the candidate receives a new job, and the referral receives a bonus for a recommendation.

Referral recruiting is especially effective for closing deficit positions, which are closed for too long by usual ways.

You can find out about vacancies in communities, groups, newsletters or through acquaintances or with the help of specialized services: Perks WW , EmployeeReferrals.com , Jobvite Refer , Simppler , RolePoint , etc. It is worth mentioning of permanent programs in such giants as Microsoft with their the slogan “Do you see yourself in others?”, Google - “Good people know other good people,” Accenture and Southwest, Apple.

According to the recruiting company The A-List, back in 2012, referral (48%) was in the first place among job search sources, with the highest job satisfaction rate being 38.4%.

In Russia, many recruiters also resorted to at least once to the recommendations, but most see this method of selection as one of many, no more. Nevertheless, many companies actively and successfully used referral programs, for example, the Teremok restaurant chain, the Euroset company, etc.

Referral recruiting was the highlight of the work of the recruitment agency Pruffi. This agency, using the Pruffi Friends application, which made it possible to recommend friends for announced vacancies and receive bonuses, showed that recruiting can become a business in social networks. A similar system was taken as a basis for other services.

The Ukrainian project Bonus.Work was launched at the beginning of the year and in three months gathered a decent set of companies. He unwinds with the help of information about quite impressive bonuses, which reach $ 1000 for a successful recommendation (as they did in Pruffi Friends). Now an affiliate program has been created there and the creators are actively invoking IT sites with Ukrainian traffic, offering a new monetization model.

Unfortunately, the results of work, in terms of closing vacancies, such services are unknown. Periodically, they talk about the lucky ones who have taken away their bonus, but do not share the full statistics. There is an assumption that referral recruiting works better in the West, and with all his pleasant idea, he is far from a panacea in personnel search and more an auxiliary tool. And specialized services are an opportunity to receive pleasant bonuses for those who already had great networking in the IT environment.

Write in the comments, if someone ever had a bonus with the recommendation of a friend or acquaintance? Or maybe someone found a job like that? How effective is this method and related services?