Jobvite Data Confirms What We All Suspected: Referrals Are The Leading Source Of Candidate Hires

By Tony Restell

Within recruitment, one of the most exciting aspects of the social media revolution has been the way it has empowered recruiters to build their referral hiring capabilities.

New data from Jobvite highlights the importance of referral recruiting to employer organisations. Analysing their huge dataset of candidate hires, Jobvite discovered some key facts about recent hiring trends:
 

1. While only 7% of applicants are generated via referral channels, they account for 40% of hires - suggesting they are the source of candidates with the best fit to an employer organisation. 86% of recruiters believe referrals are the source of candidates that provide the best quality of candidate shortlist
    
2. Employees hired through a referral will start employment sooner than candidates sourced via other methods - so turn to this channel if you have an urgent role to fill
    
3. On average, hires recruited via a referral channel are likely to remain employed for longer than candidates sourced via the company website or a jobs board.
    
4. When looking at the success of referral recruiting, sales is the area that sees the largest gains from recruiting in this manner.

All of which sounds pretty logical - and would have been the gut instinct of many of you in the recruitment field. But it's certainly interesting to see hard data lending weight to this proposition.

Jobvite Data Confirms What We All Suspected: Referrals Are The Leading Source Of Candidate Hires
 

Source: Jobvite Blog

The real message within this data is not that careers websites, job boards or any other candidate channels are heading for a swift demise. Whenever talent is in short supply - as it increasingly is - recruiters have to use a wide variety of channels to meet the hiring demands of the business. Historically, referral hiring has only been able to produce a tiny fraction of the hires needed by businesses. This data shows that the reach of referral schemes is increasing - and therefore so will their contribution to the hiring challenges organisations will face. But incremental hires from other sources will still be essential, so don't go jettisoning all those other subscriptions just yet.

The real message is rather that any organisation not yet immersed and expert in referral hiring is increasingly putting itself at a competitive disadvantage. Therefore expect more and more recruiters to be exploring their options here as the year unfolds...