What tools are your recruiting tech stack? To get the most bang for their buck, agencies need to think carefully about the tools they adopt, as well as how those tools can interact to make an exponential impact on success.
In a webinar, Staffing Referrals President and CEO David Folwell and VP of Customer Success Rachelle Arnold were joined by Jodda Perry, Vice President of Enterprise Solutions at Avionté, WorkN, and Dan Mastropolo, Chief Vision Officer at high-volume light industrial staffing firm Shiftfillers.
Shiftfillers launched as a tech-forward company in 2021 and has been one of the fastest-growing light industrial staffing firms ever since. Their key differentiator is the way they use technology and automation to streamline talent fulfillment processes. In the webinar, the group analyzes how tech stack optimization and a focus on referrals led Shiftfillers to experience 250% growth in just one year.
Below is a summary of some key topics they discussed. You can watch the full webinar here.
The staffing tech stack
Shiftfillers aligned their tech strategy with their vision of making life easier for candidates and employers. To achieve this goal, they leveraged Avionté for their back office and ATS, WorkN for a consumer-grade mobile experience, and Staffing Referrals for tracking, managing, and scaling their referral program.This tech stack enables their team to source higher quality talent with less effort than the competition.
“It’s a mobile-first world, and candidates expect mobile apps that deliver an easy-to-use experience. We integrated Staffing Referrals into the Shiftfillers app so that when talent engages with it, they don’t even realize that it’s a third party because it’s so seamless.” ~Jodda Perry, Vice President of Enterprise Solutions at Avionté, WorkN
The candidate experience
Light industrial staffing is highly transactional, and the candidate experience must be fast and easy, meaning all in one place. Shiftfillers’ mobile app makes it easy for talent to not only find jobs and schedule shifts, but also refer their friends for jobs.
“We knew early on that we needed to have a really good tech stack and mobile experience. We work in a vendor on-premise capacity, and that means we’re trying to fill upwards of 500 orders a week, which is why referrals are a core piece of our talent acquisition strategy. Staffing Referrals was involved from Day 1. Our ambassadors have dashboards where they can see who they’ve referred and know when they’re eligible for a referral bonus. We want more referrals, we want our talent to know that we’re willing to pay them to access their network, and having Staffing Referrals in our app makes it easy for them to engage and earn extra money.” ~Dan Mastropolo, Chief Vision Officer at Shiftfillers
“The coolest part of Staffing Referrals is the transparency for the talent. If I refer someone, how do I know I’m going to get credit? Staffing Referrals has closed that loop so that the talent that’s doing the referring always knows where their referrals stand.” ~Jodda Perry, Vice President of Enterprise Solutions at Avionté, WorkN
How Shiftfillers turned their talent network into a referral-generating machine
To get referrals, you need a community of talent. When Shiftfillers first launched, they didn’t have a talent community, so they started by using traditional recruiting methods, like job board advertisements. In their first year of business, they got just under 200 referrals. Then, things started to really take off – halfway through 2023, Shiftfillers was already on track for over 1,000 referrals.
Here’s how they did it, from Dan Mastropolo:
“Once we got our marketing and communication pieces in place, we started to get bigger candidate populations. Then, we built out more automations to introduce our referral program, even at the entry point of an applicant. When an applicant comes in, they get a pre-screen, and even if they aren’t qualified for a job, they can still become an ambassador and earn money through our referral program.
When someone is on assignment and learning more about what to expect in the job, that’s where we start seeing referrals really pick up. Our candidate populations are growing by the day, to the point that we have a dedicated recruiter who only works referrals. Right now, we’re seeing over 430% referral growth from the prior year.”
Additional referral program details
- Shiftfillers offers a dual-sided referral bonus: $100 to the ambassador, $25 to the applicant.
- The minimum term for earning a referral bonus is 80 hours of work.
- Referred candidates stay on the job twice as long as candidates from other sources.
Watch the full webinar to learn more about how Shiftfillers built their tech stack, how they keep their fill rate at 100%, and more.