Suppose you were asked if you knew any travel nurses looking for a job right now. You’d likely come up with a few names at best. That’s because you’re limited by what we call the mental rolodex. It’s simply impossible to know off the top of your head everyone who’s looking for a job right now.
This is how outdated referral programs work. They may source some talent, but they leave money on the table because they curtail your reach.
Now imagine you put a post out on Facebook and LinkedIn seeking a travel nurse. You’d instantly reach friends and friends of friends, coworkers you hadn’t thought of in years, even acquaintances whose career paths you might not know that much about — a far more substantial list of qualified candidates!
That’s the power of automated referral programs — they turn every contact in your database, every person your team contacts, into a potential brand ambassador.
Track your referral leads automatically
Is your team still working from a spreadsheet of candidates they’ve spoken to about referrals? Or making notes about referral requests in your ATS?
The problem with these common methods of referral tracking is that they rely on your recruiters’ memories and on manual processing, leading to issues such as:
- Missed referrals, leaving talent (and revenue) on the table
- Less reliable data, which can lead to poor decision-making and misallocation of sourcing resources
- Unpaid brand ambassadors who will not only stop referring friends but might become detractors for your brand
Here’s how an automated referral platform like Staffing Referrals solves these problems:
- You can set up the platform and let it run, generating more connections without generating more work.
- Automated tracking gives you insight into who has heard about your referral program, shown interest, and recommended talent to your agency.
- Your team will never have to hunt down conversations, comb through texts, or compile notes from your ATS to solve a referral dispute.
- You’ll know which recruiters source referrals most efficiently and how they get results, so you can improve your referral strategies based on their success.
Standardize promotion across all recruiters
Once you have a clear picture of what referral tactics work best for your audience, you can easily standardize promotion, messaging, and process among all your recruiters with an automated referral management (ARM) platform.
This means your recruiters will no longer have to reinvent the wheel. Using templated messages and consistent promotions across all channels — from your website to your social media accounts — ensures that every candidate gets a consistent experience with your brand and receives the same information and incentive opportunities.
Need more help generating referrals? Check out our free Referral Program Best Practices & Benchmarks eBook for some tips and tricks you can start implementing today!