Most of you may have heard that referrals are meant to be a good source of quality candidates. If you delve further into the source of this perception, it usually comes from anecdotal evidence rather that measurable results over time; for that reason too there is no additional intelligence on which referral channel is the most effective (e.g. employees, placed candidates), for example.
A number of corporates and agencies furnish people with bonuses and rewards for referring others if the candidates get the job offer and stick around beyond the probation period, or some variant along those lines. To me, the payout was a windfall as opposed to the core motivation to link up someone from your network with a job. Am I off with the fairies for thinking this?
I mean, do we as social entities direct our efforts to complement our earnings with financial rewards that stem from dobbing in the people that we know and think can hold onto a job? Or is there a middle ground, whereby we both look to reap gains whilst supposedly doing someone a favor?
I got to think about this in light of 2 recent events: the launch of jobbountyhunter in Australia, and me being semi-spammed by someone from my LinkedIn network who was trying to get me to join “the myspace of recruitment”. I won’t go into the detail of their business models, which are totally different btw; the jist of both though is that their success relies on you wanting to make money off your friends.
I am very curious to see how well these businesses go. Personally, I don’t see it happening for them; I refer someone to create a reputation as a referrer of great people and to create a reputation as a finder of great jobs for people. These are social reasons underpinning social behaviors, right?
