Editing Recruitment (section)

=== Employee referral ===                <!--- ===Employee referral=== -->
An '''employee referral''' is a candidate recommended by an existing employee. This is sometimes referred to as {{Visible anchor|referral recruitment}}. Encouraging existing employees to select and recruit suitable candidates results in:
* Improved candidate quality ('fit'). Employee referrals allow existing employees to screen, select and refer candidates, lowers staff attrition rate; candidates hired through referrals tend to stay up to 3 times longer than candidates hired through [[job board]]s and other sources.<ref name=ATL.browsers>{{cite magazine|magazine=[[The Atlantic]] |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/03/people-who-use-firefox-or-chrome-are-better-employees/387781 |title=People Who Use Firefox or Chrome Are Better Employees |first=Joe |last=Pinsker |date=March 16, 2015}}</ref> The one-to-one direct relationship between the candidate and the referring employee and the exchange of knowledge that takes place allows the candidate to develop a strong understanding of the company, its business and the application and recruitment process. The candidate is thereby enabled to assess their own suitability and likelihood of success, including "fitting in."
* Reduces the considerable cost of third-party service providers who would have previously conducted the screening and selection process. An [[op-ed]] in ''[[Crain Communications|Crain's]]'' in April 2013 recommended that companies look to employee referral to speed the recruitment process for [[purple squirrel]]s, which are rare candidates considered to be "perfect" fits for open positions.<ref name="crainsypurple">{{cite news|title=Need to fill jobs? Don't hunt the 'purple squirrel' |first=Mary |last=Kramer |url=http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article/20130407/NEWS/304079992/publishers-notebook-need-to-fill-jobs-dont-hunt-the-purple |newspaper=[[Crain Communications|Crain's Detroit Business]] |date=April 7, 2013  |access-date=2016-06-10}}</ref>
* The employee typically receives a referral bonus, and is widely acknowledged as being cost-effective. The Global Employee Referral Index 2013 Survey found that 92% of participants reported employee referrals as one of the top recruiting sources.<ref>{{cite web |author=ZALP Global Employee Referral Index 2013 Survey |title=ZALP unleashes the power of Employee Referrals |url=http://www.zalp.com/theemployeereferralblog/blog/zalp-unleashes-the-power-of-employee-referrals |publisher=ZALP.com}}</ref>
* As candidate quality improves and interview-to-job-offer conversion rates increase, the amount of time spent [[Job interview|interviewing]] decreases, which means the company's [[employee]] headcount can be streamlined and be used more efficiently. Marketing and advertising expenditures decrease as existing employees source potential candidates from existing personal networks of friends, family, and associates. By contrast, recruiting through third-party recruitment agencies incurs a 20–25% agency finder's fee – which can top $25K for an employee with $100K annual salary.

There is, however, a risk of less corporate creativity:  An overly homogeneous workforce is at risk for "fails to produce novel ideas or [[innovation]]s."<ref name=OverFail>{{cite web|url=http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/srivastava/papers/Distinguishing%20Round%20from%20Square%20Pegs.pdf |title=Distinguishing Round from Square Pegs: Predicting Hiring Based on Pre-hire Language Use |author1=Sarah Kathryn Stein  |author2=Amir Goldberg |author3=Sameer B. Srivastava}}</ref>