Using Employee Referrals

Reward employees for referring great hires with the Employee Referral feature. Manage employee incentives, track which applicants were referred by whom, and send automated referral digest emails — including unique referral links for each employee!

Why should I use an employee referral program?

Employee referrals are consistently one of the best sources of hires. In a CareerPlug study of more than 10,000 companies, we found that the best source of high-quality applicants for employers in all industries surveyed is referrals.

Employee referrals are also hired faster, have a lower cost per hire, and have a smoother onboarding and a higher retention rate.

Tip: Consider offering a bonus to an employee if you hire someone they referred. According to LinkedIn, 96% of employees prefer a cash bonus for a successful referral.

How do I share open positions with my network?

1. On your Jobs page, click the three-dots icon to the right of whichever job you want to share and select Share from the drop-down menu.

2. In the Share Job pop-up window, click the Send Referral Email link on the Ask Employees For Referrals tile.

3. In the Ask For Employee Referrals drawer, click the To drop-down menu and select any employees you want to solicit referrals from by checking the box to the left of their name.

4. Enter an email Subject.

Note: In the Email Preview section, you'll see a number of dynamic fields represented as black-tagged text. These fields — the recipient's name, their personal referral link, and their referral code — update automatically based on the recipient(s).

5. Click the Send button in the bottom-right corner of the drawer.

Don't see the employee you're looking for?

Enter their email address in the field at the top of the To drop-down menu and check the box to the left of the Add "[Employee Email/New Email]" option.

Click the Send button, and the Add Names for New Emails drawer will automatically appear. Enter the employee's First Name and Last Name, then click the Send button.

The new employee will appear on your Team page.

How do I set up the Referral Reminder Email?

You can set up a recurring Referral Reminder Email to be sent to all current employees, keeping them informed about active jobs they can refer candidates to.

1. Navigate to your Team page.

2. Click the Referrals tab.

3. Click the Settings button in the top-right corner of the page.

4. In the Referral & Incentive Settings drawer, select an Email Frequency.

5. Choose the day of the week on which you want the email to be sent using the Email Day drop-down menu.

6. Enter your Email Content in the available field. Use the editing toolbar to format the content. Your top five jobs and a description of your current referral incentives will be automatically added to the email.

To see a complete preview of this message, click the Send Test Email button.

7. Turn on the Incentive Tracking toggle.

8. Enter a description for your current referral incentives in the Incentive field. This field can be used to track incentives for your team as a reward for providing referrals. It will display in the email summary for open jobs if tracking is turned on.

9. Click the Save Changes button in the bottom-right corner of the drawer.

You can see your updated Referral Reminder Email settings in the Referral Email section on your Referrals page.

How do I tell which applicants are referrals?

On your Applicants page, referrals will have an orange two-person icon below their name.

Hovering over the orange two-person icon will tell you which of your employees the candidate was referred by.

The referral information will also be visible when you view the applicant's resume.

When you review new applicants, you'll also see the referral information.