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

By Tony Restell

Share on: 

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...

 

What does our team do?

The team at Social Hire never just do social media management.

What the Social Hire gang loves is making a difference for our clients, and we don't want to waste your, or our resources on campaigns that aren't right for your organisation, if it doesn't get your organisation the difference you need - we prefer a better approach. When your business utilises social media management, Social Hire get your brand the exposure it needs and offer your business the lift it needs to improve.

Our digital marketing managers are the wizards that can give you the insight you need to develop your business. Have you had enough of making complex personnel choices that don't work well for your digital presence?

Our group of specialists are an organisation that helps our clients boost their social media marketing by offering social media management services on a monthly basis.

You might like these blog posts How to Build a Recruiting Marketing Content Plan, Competitive Salary is Still Important to Graduates, How Can Content Marketing Boost Your Startup Launch, and 7 Tips for Hiring an All-Star Employee Who Will Help You to Grow Your Business.

  Back to Recruitment blogs