DIVERSANT is one of the fastest-growing staffing agencies and is one of the 25 largest IT staffing firms in the country. The company has achieved their success by taking a consultative approach and using best-in-class methodologies to solve their customers’ most critical problems, as well as prioritizing transparency in their communications with candidates.
The DIVERSANT team has long recognized the importance of referrals, especially in the highly competitive IT sector. “Staffing companies have known since the dawn of time that you need to ask for referrals because, when we get a referral, the quality of that candidate is much, much higher than what we typically see from job boards,” said Jim Yoshimura, the company’s chief operating officer and a 30+-year veteran of the staffing industry.
But Yoshimura also knew they needed a better solution for managing those valuable referrals – one that would make the process more efficient and more sustainable. “We were about to go down the same track we always go down, which is to crank up the PowerPoint generator, do some presentations, train the recruiters, and push them to track referrals for three to six months until they get tired of doing that and move onto something else.”
Instead, he decided to look for an automated referral management (ARM) solution that would integrate referrals into DIVERSANT’s routine business processes.
Yoshimura specifically wanted a solution with demonstrated success in IT staffing, as well as one that would track referral bonus payouts. His search led him to Staffing Referrals.
“From a pure ROI standpoint, we’ve generated a 40:1 ratio after the first year with Staffing Referrals.” ~Jim Yoshimura, Chief Operating Officer, DIVERSANT
The success of any technology implementation is determined by the return on investment. For DIVERSANT, the investment in Staffing Referrals has already paid for itself many times over. “In the first year, we generated 50 times more margin from placing referred candidates than what we paid for the software,” Yoshimura said. “We think that’s a tremendous result.”
One of the reasons referrals are so valuable is that many of the candidates were previously off the radar. “We’ve placed candidates that we may never have gotten before because they were probably passive candidates,” Yoshimura said. “Now we’ve made placements for the company and also have these candidates in our database going forward.”
“We did an analysis and found that we place referred and redeployed candidates three to four times more successfully than candidates we find on job boards.” ~Jim Yoshimura, Chief Operating Officer, DIVERSANT
Like most staffing agencies, DIVERSANT traditionally sourced talent from job boards, their internal database, and LinkedIn. To better understand the impact of different sourcing strategies on their business, the company analyzed the success rates of candidates from the various platforms. The analysis revealed that their recruiters place referred and redeployed candidates three to four times more successfully than candidates from job boards.
“Most of the time, the candidates that come in from job boards – we don’t know them, they’re just pulled in from the interface based on our search criteria. They’re totally different from referred candidates, who come from someone we do know and are higher-quality,” Yoshimura said. “I’m placing people that our competitors don’t have, and if I’m doing that three to four times more efficiently, then I’ve got a leg up on the competition.”
The results also demonstrate how much recruiter time can be saved by engaging with better candidates. “We have to go through three to four times more candidates to make a placement via job boards compared to referrals or redeployments,“ Yoshimura said. “That’s just time and money for everybody.”
“If you want consistency with referrals, you have to automate and integrate to the point where it all just flows.” ~Jim Yoshimura, Chief Operating Officer, DIVERSANT
A key contributor to DIVERSANT’s success with Staffing Referrals is how well it integrates with the JobDiva applicant tracking system. When a new referral comes in, recruiters are automatically notified and the candidate’s information is automatically entered into the ATS. This eliminates the administrative burden of tracking referrals and also provides transparency for both the candidates and the ambassadors who referred them.
“One of the huge value-adds of the platform is that the candidates and the ambassadors can see the hiring status and when they’re getting paid,” Yoshimura said. “If you don’t have that, the people doing the referring lose faith and confidence in you. They’ll stop referring because they never hear back.”
“Our recruiters love that they’re getting high-quality candidates they might not have found on their own.” ~Jim Yoshimura, Chief Operating Officer, DIVERSANT
New technology implementations always have their challenges. Recruiters are often hesitant to adopt new software because they’re using so many tools already. For Staffing Referrals, adoption has been fairly easy because the recruiters are able to see the immediate benefits of getting more referrals.
“The recruiters who adopt Staffing Referrals love the fact that it gives them the opportunity to get their name out there,” Yoshimura said. “It’s branded for individual recruiters, so they’re building their network and their pipeline with high-quality candidates. The more recruiters who see success, the more other recruiters say, ‘I need to be doing that too.’”
“I really appreciate the partnership with the Staffing Referrals team.” ~Jim Yoshimura, Chief Operating Officer, DIVERSANT
Staffing Referrals is the leading ARM platform built specifically for the staffing industry. But DIVERSANT chose Staffing Referrals not just because of the technology but also because of the team’s flexible, customer-oriented approach.
“Companies are more than just technology,” Yoshimura said. “We need partners that not only have the technology that meets our business needs but also that are open-minded to working with their customers to help make that technology work better for them.”
“Many technology companies say, ‘This is our product. We’re not changing it. Take it or leave it. End of story.’ I get the business reasons for that, but we’re not buying a spreadsheet or a word processor here. We’re buying a complex piece of technology and trying to develop a new business process around this technology. There’s no way one piece of software can just be dropped in and work. It’s all about attitude, open-mindedness, and the people you work with. The Staffing Referrals team has that attitude and has been willing to work with us to make the partnership a success.”
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