Did you know that job candidates who are referred have a higher chance of landing the job, tend to do better in their roles, and stay with the organization longer? Therefore, a referral can significantly benefit not only the job candidate but the organization that receives the referral as well. It is no surprise then that most recruiters consider referrals to be the top way to find the best job candidates. In this article, we discuss the importance of networking and gaining referrals for advancing your career.
Begin Networking Early
It’s important to start networking and building connections as early as possible. The individuals in your network can provide you with career advice as well as lead you to job opportunities. The relationships that you build now can last for decades.
In an CNBC article on networking by Julia Freeland Fisher, she points out that “according to LinkedIn’s own data, people who are referred for a job are a whopping nine times more likely to get it.” She also notes the importance of early internships and mentoring which can be a “key ingredient to blazing pathways to economic security. These experiences, marked the chance for young people to forge positive relationships with adults as supervisors and mentors.”
The Benefit of Referrals to Organizations
The major advantage of referrals is that they can create a win-win situation for everyone involved. You can get the ideal job for you, the company gets the right person for the job, and the person giving the referral can benefit from helping to find the right candidate for the organization.
Some companies have referral programs in which they award bonuses based on referrals and retention. This gives an incentive to those giving referrals to recommend good candidates.
Also, according to an article by qz.com, “there’s a reason companies prefer to hire people who are referred. Such applicants have been shown repeatedly in studies (pdf) to be significantly more likely to stay at a firm for longer, and to be more productive. This might be because the workers are better matches, or because they have a pre-existing mentor or monitor in the person that helped hire them.”
For more interesting statistics on the benefits or referrals, take a look at this article on the 8 Most Important Employee Referral Statistics.
Getting Referrals for Advancing Your Career
Building your networks on social media, especially on LinkedIn, is a great way to connect with people in your industry and to build relationships with people who can open doors for you for job opportunities and refer you to hiring managers. See our article on networking tips to learn some of the ways that you can create a strong LinkedIn network.
At 2Actify, we teach strategic online networking skills that can be applied on any major social network platform to help you to connect, get referrals, and get you in front of hiring managers to land your ideal job.
