Staffing agencies are always looking for ways to do more with less. This is especially true right now, as many firms have faced layoffs in the past year, making increasing recruiter efficiency and productivity an imperative. To achieve this, agencies are embracing automation like never before.

Recently, Staffing Referrals President David Folwell and VP of Customer Experience Rachelle Arnold held a webinar with Billy Davis, Enterprise Customer Success for Automation at Bullhorn, and Toby Boeckman, Director of Recruiting at the banking and financial services consulting firm Heitmeyer Consulting, where they discussed how Heitmeyer uses Bullhorn Automation and Staffing Referrals to scale its referral program and grow its business.

“Staffing Referrals gave us a platform to build out an awesome referral network and fully utilize our deep network of banking professionals. Combining it with Bullhorn Automation completely took it to the next level. The two platforms together put our referral program on steroids.” ~Toby Boeckman, Director of Recruiting, Heitmeyer Consulting

Heitmeyer’s Referral Success by the Numbers

In the past three years, Heitmeyer Consulting has grown 279%, landing them a spot on the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing companies.

Since launching Staffing Referrals, they have built a network of more than 1,700 brand ambassadors. The candidates they get from referrals stay on contract five months longer on average than candidates from other sources, resulting in a $29,000 increase in gross profit per placement from referrals.

“Implementing Staffing Referrals is the equivalent of hiring two recruiters for a fraction of the cost. It’s generated almost $12m in revenue from the platform to date, and has made recruiters significantly more productive.” ~Toby Boeckman, Director of Recruiting of Heitmeyer Consulting.

This article outlines 7 strategies to get more referrals as discussed on the webinar. For more information, watch the webinar on-demand and download our Bullhorn Automation and Staffing Referrals playbooks.

1. Start automating your most profitable activities and where you have the best data

Automation can support and accelerate many areas of your business. The question is, Where should you start?

Folwell recommends focusing on your most profitable activities:

“Automation, when applied to a profitable process, accelerates growth. Agencies that understand this and are intensely focused on amplifying their most profitable activities will be the winners of tomorrow.” ~David Folwell, President, Staffing Referrals

For many agencies, referrals are the most profitable source of candidates. If your company is one of them, automated referral management (ARM) may be a perfect fit.

When deciding who to ask for referrals, Davis recommends starting where your data is the best, which is typically at the back end of the process with placements:

“The best data quality tends to be around placements. This lends itself well to a referral lens because placed candidates are a great source of qualified referrals.” ~Billy Davis, Enterprise Customer Success for Automation, Bullhorn

He also recommends starting small and building up:

“There are so many directions you can go with automation. That’s the great part about it, but it can also be a little daunting. I recommend breaking things down into small manageable chunks. Don’t try to do 100 automations in your first week. Focus on one or two, get those into a good spot, and then move on to the next. All of a sudden, you’ll find you have 30, 40, 50 automations and the impact starts to compound. That’s where the true magic happens.” ~Billy Davis, Enterprise Customer Success for Automation, Bullhorn

2. Incorporate your referral program into all automated emails

Staffing Referrals automatically invites talent to join your referral program based on triggers in your ATS, but the communication shouldn’t stop there.

Heitmeyer includes information about their referral program in all of their automated emails. They currently have about 70 automations total, with about 10% focused specifically on driving referrals. For the other 90%, there’s a link in the signature that invites people to join the referral program or refer a friend.

You can also include a P.S. in your automated emails about the referral program. This is a soft ask that keeps the referral program top of mind and can generate an incremental bump in referrals across all of your automations.

“You never know where your next referral will come from. Including a link in all of your emails is a nice way to find new candidates that takes little to no work because of the automation.” ~Toby Boeckman, Director of Recruiting, Heitmeyer Consulting

3. Use NPS automation to get referrals from promoters

Bullhorn Automation has a built-in engagement to collect Net Promoter Scores (NPS). Davis notes that this is a very high-value automation because asking your candidates for feedback shows that you care about their experience, which makes them likely to refer you

“If you provide a great experience, people are much more apt to give you a referral – to trust you with a friend, a colleague, a loved one, etc. So there’s great synergy between NPS scores and getting referrals.” ~Billy Davis, Enterprise Customer Success for Automation, Bullhorn

You can leverage this synergy by setting up an automation to ask promoters (i.e., people who rate you a 9 or a 10 on your NPS survey) for a referral.

4. Use re-engagement campaigns to connect with past talent

Heitmeyer uses re-engagement campaigns to nurture their network, even if they aren’t currently looking for a job. For example, Bullhorn Automation has a built-in engagement that asks talent to update their contact information and communication preferences. At the end of that engagement, Heitmeyer asks if they know anyone else who might be a good fit for the agency.

“We wanted a way to tap our vast network, even those who are in a great situation and not looking for a job. So we ask them to update their contact information or let them know what’s going on at Heitmeyer. Then we ask for a referral. This gives us multiple avenues to re-engage with our database and drives more referrals.” ~Toby Boeckman, Director of Recruiting, Heitmeyer Consulting

5. Send recruiters automated reminders about their referrals

Automations aren’t limited to communications with your talent community. You can use them internally as well. Staffing Referrals sends recruiters an automated email every time a new referral candidate comes in, as well as a weekly summary of their referral activity. This keeps the referral program – and those high-quality referral candidates – top of mind for your recruiters.

6. Connect with referred candidates within 48 hours

We like to talk about giving referrals the white glove treatment. This is key to building new relationships, as well as reinforcing trust with the ambassadors who send referrals your way.

At Heitmeyer, the expectation is that recruiters will connect with referrals within 48 hours. Automation can help here. Staffing Referrals has automated messages where qualified candidates can book time on recruiters’ calendars. You can also include a calendar link in Bullhorn Automation messages so that talent in re-engagement campaigns can book a meeting right away.

7. Share your referral and automation success with your team

This strategy comes from Arnold, who spent several years as a recruiter and then the director of recruiting at a healthcare staffing agency before coming to Staffing Referrals. Sharing data about your success helps get buy-in, which is critical when implementing new processes.

“Don’t keep your data just for upper level management. As a former recruiter, I know that change is hard and automation can sometimes make you feel like you’re losing your autonomy. Showing them the data around the real business impact of referrals and automation gets them excited about it and encourages them to look for more ways to use these tools.” ~Rachelle Arnold, VP of Customer Experience, Staffing Referrals

Want more content on referrals and automation? Watch the full webinar. For step-by-step guides on how to implement these and other automations, download our Bullhorn Automation + Staffing Referrals playbooks.

Not yet a Staffing Referrals customer? Get a demo and learn how to turn your talent pool into a competitive advantage.

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