Why You Shouldn't Be Recommended!

Recently, a LinkedIn influencer and a career coach from the Russian-speaking community made a post, "Why You Should Be Recommended.", explaining why you should seek job referrals, even from strangers on platforms like LinkedIn.

He highlighted the key motivators behind a successful referral: financial incentives, a desire to help others, and the principle of karma.

I intended to make a brief comment, but ended up writing this entire article.

After working on the topic of job referrals for over 3 years, conducting dozens of discussions and interviews with referrers, recruiters, and hiring managers, I would like to share my observations and thoughts with you.

Internal referrals schemes

1. Internal referrals work WELL in small organizations. A shared cultural code and constant communication increase referrers' sense of responsibility. They strive to attract like-minded people and recommend only those who are a good fit. This approach can work even without monetary rewards. Sometimes, it also succeeds in large companies with a strong corporate culture and a developed brand.
2. Internal referrals work poorly in larger organizations or those with a weak corporate culture. Here, companies often offer employees a small but attractive reward (hereafter, "bounty," from $500 to $3,000), which recruiters believe should motivate referrers.

IRL, this leads to the following:

• A small flow of candidates and a low success rate, combined with a non-transparent bounty system, turn the referral program into a "suitcase without a handle"—it's more trouble than it's worth.
• Employees start chasing bounties: you see posts on social media with job openings and a call to "send me your resume, I'll refer you." Google's referral system even has a checkbox that says "I don't know this person" 🤦.
• As a result, recruiters receive many applications that are no more relevant than leads from LinkedIn or job boards. Both the recruiter and the hiring manager subconsciously prefer these candidates, believing that the referrer acted responsibly and thoughtfully. In fact, most of the time, they didn't. This creates a dangerous situation that does more harm than good.

External Referrals

1. External referrals on social media don't work very well (including on LinkedIn). "We'll give you an iPhone, a bottle of whiskey, and dinner; we'll pay you $10k for a vacation" for a successful referral. It sounds tempting, but in practice, it doesn't work. Referrers often don't trust the organization, so the promise doesn't truly motivate them to carefully search for a candidate. More often than not, people are just helping out acquaintances without much hope of success. It's a free lottery for both the employer and the referrer. Oh, and I almost forgot, these types of posts often turn out to be just clickbait.
2. External referrals on a specialized platform. Almost no one does this well. There are giants like Mercor and Braintrust, and quite large Paraform, etc. To avoid turning this part into an ad, I'll just say that at WIP [Work Identity Protocol], we have several methods for doing external (and internal) referrals the right way.

Message me, and I'll be happy to tell you more, or come to our webinar on September 10.

And most importantly. The road paved with good intentions often leads to the wrong door 🤷.

• You think people want to help you;
• people think they are helping you and the company;
• the recruiter thinks that some kind people hooked them up with a lead and made their job easier...

... but in reality, everyone likely wasted their time and also created unnecessary expectations throughout the entire chain.

Takeaways:

• Any tool must be used wisely to get the initially intended result!
• If you think something is working, it's possible you just think it is.
• If you're sure something is working, double-check it.
• If this topic interests you, we need to talk!