It’s no big secret that in business it’s all about who you know. Effective networking lies at the heart of every successful company and crucially, it lies at the heart of recruitment.

Amongst the many and varied ways employers can source the top talent, employee referrals are rapidly becoming one of the most favoured tools in the recruitment industry.

Thanks to the boom in social networking it’s never been easier to hire via word of mouth, and the results are impressive. Just take a look at some of the stats on modern day employee referrals:

Employee referrals – the stats.

– In comparison to employees hired through career sites, employee referrals begin their jobs 26 days earlier (or 10 days earlier to those found on job boards)

– Employee referrals result in better staff retention, 47% stay for over 3 years (in comparison to 14% of those hired through job boards).

– 51% of recruiters and employers say that employee referrals made hiring less expensive

– 8.6 out of 10 recruiters and employers consider employee referrals to be a top source of quality candidate, and 70% thought felt that referrals were a better fit for their company.

– Last but not least, 67% said the overall recruiting process was shorter than other methods of hiring.

So, not only do employee referrals make hiring quicker and cheaper, but it improves the quality of your candidates and they stay for longer too. What’s not to like?

softgarden and employee referrals

At softgarden we’re firm believers in the power of employee referrals, that’s why we’ve included click-to-share tools to help you and your employees quickly spread the word.

After drafting a vacancy, you can opt to multi-post your ad across all of your social networking sites (as well as your job boards) in seconds.

The job ad itself includes click-to-share buttons, meaning your employees and colleagues can rapidly spread the news amongst their own contacts.

In an office of 20 employees with 100 Facebook friends each, that’s a potential network of 2,000 people alone – imagine the potential reach with a combination of Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Additionally, softgarden has a great widget which you can install on your Facebook page (and your website) meaning everyone who comes across it can apply to your latest vacancy.

Oh, and of course whenever you create a new ad you have the option of sharing it directly with any of your personal contacts with a simple ‘invite’ tool – all you need to do is add your contacts.

Want more? Of course you do! Make the most of employee referrals and sign up for free now >>

Thanks to Jobvite for their survey on employee referrals.

Image reference – Flickr MAKime Services GmbH