The Power of Referrals In Recruitment

Having spent a number of years working in recruitment there are clearly some huge highs and lows. You come to work every day to try and grow your personal brand amongst the team and with senior leaders and in doing that you are growing the companies brand/reputation.

For me, referrals are one of the most satisfying moments in a recruiter’s career.

We spend hours/weeks/months/years building our network to a point to where we become an expert in our chosen market and the service you provide for both clients and candidates is rewarded with that intro email to your next placement/client simply because you have worked hard listened and done your job.

Of course, this comes with time and trust across your network. A common mistake by a lot of recruiters is thinking that they have to bill a certain amount of money with a client to gain that respect and trust.

The value added in referring your clients onto other services/businesses/people is also a very powerful tool to help build rapport and trust. Last year I spoke to a candidate whom I did not have anything for. He was after a contract gig and needed to start sharpish due to financial strains. After speaking to our team and holding onto his resume for a few days I realised that my clients were not at the level he was looking for. After chatting to him I was honest and explained that the space he worked in was not really my field but I really wanted to help him as we got on very well and I knew a lot of businesses would love him.

The perception of recruiters is that we only do the job for the money and all we care about is getting a candidate over the line after which time we are done with them. I sat down and thought about how can I help this guy. My clients didn’t have a need and I was a bit blind in his specialist area.

I spent 40 minutes with the gent on the phone and asked him to list me his preferences on companies. I then spent another 40 minutes hunting email addresses/linked in of senior-level staff from those business’s and canvased him to those clients stating I was doing him a favour and that I am not looking for any fee on this placement.

We helped him find a 3-month gig – he was happy as Larry.

There is a weird and wonderful concept called Karma. I for one used to laugh at the thought of it but as I have matured as a recruiter you come to realise helping someone out because you believe in them as a person holds no monetary value. 3 months later I received a call from the business that took him on saying they were very happy with his performance and that they had referred our services onto another business in the owner's network who were looking to fill a couple of roles. The door had been opened and the referral process proved to be a huge success.

Recruiters referring recruiters!

We have recently had a client referred over to us from what leaders would describe as a competing recruitment business. The location of the role/client was out of there market and instead of telling the client they would find someone (half-assed) they passed the role onto a ‘competitor’ in ourselves. You can see the value added there - the trust built between that recruitment agency and the client has increased due to a lack of greed and the respect between two competing agencies has grown. Everyone is a winner. We work in a competitive environment and you would rarely see Tottenham giving Arsenal a goal so they can get their goal difference up. This is a superb example of recruiters helping the industry’s reputation. Yes, we have competitors and yes everyone wants to be number one but sometimes seeing the bigger picture will help everyone involved.

Reputation, trust and relationships are all built around emotion. If you want to grow as a recruiter and be the very best in your business you have to start looking at people as people and not ￡$.

My concluding question is are recruitment leaders doing enough to instil these morals into junior recruiters or is it still frowned upon by business owners to work something that does not bring in immediate cash?