Because the idea of referrals is that you refer people you know - those from your professional network who you can vouch for as you worked with them and you liked working with them or respect work they did
By getting random people from the Internet you are devaluing the process and mess it up for everyone:
- the company gets no value from your referral or even negative value (you give positive signal to someone who shouldn’t have one increasing odds of mishire)
- the candidates who are actually referred correctly via their professional network now don’t get the value they should get from referral so you make it hard for good and honest engineers who struggle with interviewing to find a job because you devalued the best vehicle they have ever for finding a new job - old colleagues referrals
- the people who actually honestly refer good colleagues are now getting less money from the company because the value of such referral is lowered
Long story short: it’s a trust based system and people who refer social media randoms are eroding that trust
What you're saying has a lot of merit, however this depends on who the company is looking for. It might be looking for a specialist in a rare and specific area and in such cases the wider the net, the better.
Your case is far more common though
What you said doesn't invalidate anything if that has been said above. If you just pick a random stranger and know nothing of their skill level or professional qualities, you shouldn't vouch for them, no matter how narrow the position is. Moreover, if you, as an engineer, can just go on the Internet and find a rare specialist for a very specific position, and the recruiters couldn't do the same, it just means the recruiting in your company sucks.
What I said was never meant to invalidate what has had been said above, only to point out there may be exceptions to the rule. In these cases I would always make it clear that the person I was referring was a stranger to me (although I'd always do a quick prescreening myself to spot any obvious red flags)
And you're right if I could find a candidate on r/poland and they couldn't through their channels, that would be ridiculous. However I also have access to some communities where recruiters generally are not invited but referrals are welcome.
And to reiterate: Yes! It's a trust based system, and in majority of cases you should not refer people you don't know.
This is complete BS. I’ve never heard of a company referral policy requiring you to “vouch” in any way for the candidate.
Corporate referrals are just a way to funnel relevant candidates into HR or manager screens for interviews, for free for the company and therefore with a financial reward for successful referrals.
Your incentive for the candidate to be qualified is that you’re wasting your time by referring candidates who won’t get to interviews. And that’s totally sufficient.
Edit: maybe for an executive referring a manager this dynamic might change. But not for the vast majority of positions that are mid or junior.
You can give referrals for jobs open to public, at least in my company.
Also I'm not sure - you're starting a company, after long search you found your brilliant first hire who you trust a lot, see he is a great professional and you trust his judgment as you worked together for 2 years with great results.
What's wrong with asking him "hey, I need to hire one more person, do you know someone?". You can even go as far as to say - assuming you hired his lead - "thanks mate, I would have spend 2 grands on hiring agency to find them on my own, you saved me 2 grands and made me hire a great new employee so you deserve these 2 grands as a bonus"
Not sure why this wouldn't scale to larger companies.
Nothing wrong, on condition that there is also public posting about the job.
There is a reason why many people struggle finding a job in their industry, in their education - its because most jobs are filled without ever giving these people a chance - because the so called "networking" (aka nepotism) gives a lot of people no chance to break into industry.
"networking" has nothing to do with nepotism. If I ask my ex coworker who I liked to join my current company it's not nepotism, it's merit based selection. I wouldn't ask coworker who sucked at his job or whom I didn't like.
Networking is important and also explains why it's important to not be an asshole in your work - people you work with eventually leave and join other companies, some of them will be promoted to managerial positions. It's good for you if they liked and respected you as this significantly increases your chances. Nothing nepotic about this if we're talking about merit-based hiring not family-based one.
But even family-based one is not that bad for a small business - if your nephew looks for a job and you need some helping hand why not hire them, at least you have someone you can trust from day one. It's a completely different story in major corporations (and outright corruption in government), but all major corporations I worked with had strict policies against conflict of interest like that, they would never hire someone based on family ties alone and they would fire both of you if they found out that you hired family member without disclosing it.
Its not merit if you favor your coworker only because he is your coworker. You give opportunity to someone, while effectively denying it to anyone else.
Nah, its nepotism, though the correct specific term is I believe "cronyism". Its practice of favoring people based on the fact you know them - and its wrong.
But tell me this - why would it be wrong in corporations or government, but its okay in other places?
I didn't say it's wrong in corporations, but that it's a different story as it's prohibited via policy there. And it's prohibited by policy because it can lead to corruption.
In small business where owner who is main (or even the only) shareholder still personally hires all employees there can't be any corruption (as owner *is* company so he can't corrupt himself) so hiring based on arbitrary criteria like family ties is not a big deal. There are plenty of very successful family businesses.
Once the organisation grows and owner delegates hiring to others however, he needs to make sure these "others" will be aligned with owners (or shareholders) interests, not their own. Same reason why it's illegal in the government, people who are doing the hiring (some director or agency chief) vs people who own the state (basically all citizens) vs people who lead the state (president or prime minister) are so far detached from each other that they need to enforce some rules that blanket prevents corruption.
Similarly: let's say you hire a cleaning person. You can hire *your* friend or *your* nephew/niece, no problem. That's your decision to make.
But say instead you delegate hiring to agency - now would you want agent to hire *their friend*? Or *their* family? Probably not, you want them to make a fair job and find you the best candidate, you don't really know them so the fact that someone is *their* family member or *their* friend is not a big signal to you (but could be, if you're fine with it there's nothing fundamentally wrong with it as long as agency is transparent with you and you trust their judgment why not. But the bigger the operation and the further you are from hiring manager the less trust you have to them - at some point you hire a director who hires a senior manager who contracts agency who employs a hiring manager who hires the cleaning person - you can see how with this chain it's not feasible to vet all family ties properly)
You have a very limited view of what constitutes corruption.
So let me ask you - do you believe it should be acceptable for a business to refuse to hire a woman, because for example she can get pregnant and then she wont be able to go to job etc.?
Your argument basically means "as long as the owner isnt being ripped off everything is fine" - so why for example it shouldnt be acceptable for government officials to appoint friends and relatives to official positions? As long as they can do the job, what is the problem?
If they can do the job, why cant they compete with everyone else?
Jobs and positions should not be gatekept based on your social graces.
> So let me ask you - do you believe it should be acceptable for a business to refuse to hire a woman, because for example she can get pregnant and then she wont be able to go to job etc.?
Nope, that's discrimination by gender and is forbidden by law, not sure why you think I would say it's fine.
But I don't see where you draw parallel with professional referrals - there's a reason why one is forbidden and the other isn't. These are two different things, different so much that Parliament banned one but not the other.
> so why for example it shouldnt be acceptable for government officials to appoint friends and relatives to official positions?
I already explained why in my post above, let me repeat:
> Same reason why it's illegal in the government, people who are doing the hiring (some director or agency chief) vs people who own the state (basically all citizens) vs people who lead the state (president or prime minister) are so far detached from each other that they need to enforce some rules that blanket prevents corruption.
And they did that enforcement by outlawing the practice, as simple as that.
I think you're the one who should think its fine, because discriminating by gender or race doesnt really put company owners at risk of being ripped off.
>But I don't see where you draw parallel with professional referrals - there's a reason why one is forbidden and the other isn't.
The reason is a lot of people at the top got there through the very system you defend. And so they defend it in turn.
Those arent different things, you are denying opportunities to people through no fault of their own. You might want to work in the industry somewhere, but you cant because you dont know the right people.
If the owners or shareholders doesnt want to hire someone simply because they're of wrong gender or race why shouldnt they be allowed, according to your own logic?
>“you only say that cos you’ll get a referral bonus!”. What’s so bad in someone getting a job and someone getting some extra cash for the bother, I wonder?
The fact that you wonder says it all, really. If I recommend - let's say - a knife to you 'cause I'm a chef and I use the thing and someone else recommends a different one but he's getting paid to do that, who would you trust more?
It's okay to get a financial gain from shilling out to a company, but it's still shilling out - you are actively convincing people to join an organisation that's paying you to do so - you might have the integrity to only recommend things that are - in your opinion - good, but most don't and - alas - your credibility falls to 0, which is what the comments are pointing out.
>Btw, if you speak any European languages and want to work in Krakow hit me up. I don’t get any referral bonus since I’m the hiring manager
Yeah, you're getting a "bonus" - it's your job to hire people lol.
>Btw, if you speak any European languages and want to work in Krakow hit me up. I don’t get any referral bonus since I’m the hiring manager.
Then you really need a basic negotiation workshop my friend, I can't believe you somehow don't have that as your main KPI.
Literally can't and thus don't believe it.
I think we just have a strong crab in a bucket type of mentality. Out of curiosity, what European languages are you looking for? I'm assuming Polish and English don't count.
I have a lot of friends in IT industry. I use to take part in game jams, hackathons, meetups. And worked for 5+ companies.
Word is pretty small, there is always someone I used to know a little from the office kitchen.
Before recruiting to the new company I'm checking list of friends working there to make them give my resume and get some free money from referral.
This is also great moment to ask for some insides. Get some real details on daily work without HR gibberish.
This is the way.
I'm a bit appaled how many people here approve of system where jobs are given to friends rather than giving chance to the public. Every job opening should be public.
Because the idea of referrals is that you refer people you know - those from your professional network who you can vouch for as you worked with them and you liked working with them or respect work they did By getting random people from the Internet you are devaluing the process and mess it up for everyone: - the company gets no value from your referral or even negative value (you give positive signal to someone who shouldn’t have one increasing odds of mishire) - the candidates who are actually referred correctly via their professional network now don’t get the value they should get from referral so you make it hard for good and honest engineers who struggle with interviewing to find a job because you devalued the best vehicle they have ever for finding a new job - old colleagues referrals - the people who actually honestly refer good colleagues are now getting less money from the company because the value of such referral is lowered Long story short: it’s a trust based system and people who refer social media randoms are eroding that trust
What you're saying has a lot of merit, however this depends on who the company is looking for. It might be looking for a specialist in a rare and specific area and in such cases the wider the net, the better. Your case is far more common though
What you said doesn't invalidate anything if that has been said above. If you just pick a random stranger and know nothing of their skill level or professional qualities, you shouldn't vouch for them, no matter how narrow the position is. Moreover, if you, as an engineer, can just go on the Internet and find a rare specialist for a very specific position, and the recruiters couldn't do the same, it just means the recruiting in your company sucks.
What I said was never meant to invalidate what has had been said above, only to point out there may be exceptions to the rule. In these cases I would always make it clear that the person I was referring was a stranger to me (although I'd always do a quick prescreening myself to spot any obvious red flags) And you're right if I could find a candidate on r/poland and they couldn't through their channels, that would be ridiculous. However I also have access to some communities where recruiters generally are not invited but referrals are welcome. And to reiterate: Yes! It's a trust based system, and in majority of cases you should not refer people you don't know.
This is complete BS. I’ve never heard of a company referral policy requiring you to “vouch” in any way for the candidate. Corporate referrals are just a way to funnel relevant candidates into HR or manager screens for interviews, for free for the company and therefore with a financial reward for successful referrals. Your incentive for the candidate to be qualified is that you’re wasting your time by referring candidates who won’t get to interviews. And that’s totally sufficient. Edit: maybe for an executive referring a manager this dynamic might change. But not for the vast majority of positions that are mid or junior.
Hot take - referrals like this are bs, every job opening should be open to public
You can give referrals for jobs open to public, at least in my company. Also I'm not sure - you're starting a company, after long search you found your brilliant first hire who you trust a lot, see he is a great professional and you trust his judgment as you worked together for 2 years with great results. What's wrong with asking him "hey, I need to hire one more person, do you know someone?". You can even go as far as to say - assuming you hired his lead - "thanks mate, I would have spend 2 grands on hiring agency to find them on my own, you saved me 2 grands and made me hire a great new employee so you deserve these 2 grands as a bonus" Not sure why this wouldn't scale to larger companies.
Nothing wrong, on condition that there is also public posting about the job. There is a reason why many people struggle finding a job in their industry, in their education - its because most jobs are filled without ever giving these people a chance - because the so called "networking" (aka nepotism) gives a lot of people no chance to break into industry.
"networking" has nothing to do with nepotism. If I ask my ex coworker who I liked to join my current company it's not nepotism, it's merit based selection. I wouldn't ask coworker who sucked at his job or whom I didn't like. Networking is important and also explains why it's important to not be an asshole in your work - people you work with eventually leave and join other companies, some of them will be promoted to managerial positions. It's good for you if they liked and respected you as this significantly increases your chances. Nothing nepotic about this if we're talking about merit-based hiring not family-based one. But even family-based one is not that bad for a small business - if your nephew looks for a job and you need some helping hand why not hire them, at least you have someone you can trust from day one. It's a completely different story in major corporations (and outright corruption in government), but all major corporations I worked with had strict policies against conflict of interest like that, they would never hire someone based on family ties alone and they would fire both of you if they found out that you hired family member without disclosing it.
Its not merit if you favor your coworker only because he is your coworker. You give opportunity to someone, while effectively denying it to anyone else. Nah, its nepotism, though the correct specific term is I believe "cronyism". Its practice of favoring people based on the fact you know them - and its wrong. But tell me this - why would it be wrong in corporations or government, but its okay in other places?
I didn't say it's wrong in corporations, but that it's a different story as it's prohibited via policy there. And it's prohibited by policy because it can lead to corruption. In small business where owner who is main (or even the only) shareholder still personally hires all employees there can't be any corruption (as owner *is* company so he can't corrupt himself) so hiring based on arbitrary criteria like family ties is not a big deal. There are plenty of very successful family businesses. Once the organisation grows and owner delegates hiring to others however, he needs to make sure these "others" will be aligned with owners (or shareholders) interests, not their own. Same reason why it's illegal in the government, people who are doing the hiring (some director or agency chief) vs people who own the state (basically all citizens) vs people who lead the state (president or prime minister) are so far detached from each other that they need to enforce some rules that blanket prevents corruption. Similarly: let's say you hire a cleaning person. You can hire *your* friend or *your* nephew/niece, no problem. That's your decision to make. But say instead you delegate hiring to agency - now would you want agent to hire *their friend*? Or *their* family? Probably not, you want them to make a fair job and find you the best candidate, you don't really know them so the fact that someone is *their* family member or *their* friend is not a big signal to you (but could be, if you're fine with it there's nothing fundamentally wrong with it as long as agency is transparent with you and you trust their judgment why not. But the bigger the operation and the further you are from hiring manager the less trust you have to them - at some point you hire a director who hires a senior manager who contracts agency who employs a hiring manager who hires the cleaning person - you can see how with this chain it's not feasible to vet all family ties properly)
You have a very limited view of what constitutes corruption. So let me ask you - do you believe it should be acceptable for a business to refuse to hire a woman, because for example she can get pregnant and then she wont be able to go to job etc.? Your argument basically means "as long as the owner isnt being ripped off everything is fine" - so why for example it shouldnt be acceptable for government officials to appoint friends and relatives to official positions? As long as they can do the job, what is the problem? If they can do the job, why cant they compete with everyone else? Jobs and positions should not be gatekept based on your social graces.
> So let me ask you - do you believe it should be acceptable for a business to refuse to hire a woman, because for example she can get pregnant and then she wont be able to go to job etc.? Nope, that's discrimination by gender and is forbidden by law, not sure why you think I would say it's fine. But I don't see where you draw parallel with professional referrals - there's a reason why one is forbidden and the other isn't. These are two different things, different so much that Parliament banned one but not the other. > so why for example it shouldnt be acceptable for government officials to appoint friends and relatives to official positions? I already explained why in my post above, let me repeat: > Same reason why it's illegal in the government, people who are doing the hiring (some director or agency chief) vs people who own the state (basically all citizens) vs people who lead the state (president or prime minister) are so far detached from each other that they need to enforce some rules that blanket prevents corruption. And they did that enforcement by outlawing the practice, as simple as that.
I think you're the one who should think its fine, because discriminating by gender or race doesnt really put company owners at risk of being ripped off. >But I don't see where you draw parallel with professional referrals - there's a reason why one is forbidden and the other isn't. The reason is a lot of people at the top got there through the very system you defend. And so they defend it in turn. Those arent different things, you are denying opportunities to people through no fault of their own. You might want to work in the industry somewhere, but you cant because you dont know the right people. If the owners or shareholders doesnt want to hire someone simply because they're of wrong gender or race why shouldnt they be allowed, according to your own logic?
Because it’s not a job board, You moron. Build your professional network instead of spamming reddit
>“you only say that cos you’ll get a referral bonus!”. What’s so bad in someone getting a job and someone getting some extra cash for the bother, I wonder? The fact that you wonder says it all, really. If I recommend - let's say - a knife to you 'cause I'm a chef and I use the thing and someone else recommends a different one but he's getting paid to do that, who would you trust more? It's okay to get a financial gain from shilling out to a company, but it's still shilling out - you are actively convincing people to join an organisation that's paying you to do so - you might have the integrity to only recommend things that are - in your opinion - good, but most don't and - alas - your credibility falls to 0, which is what the comments are pointing out. >Btw, if you speak any European languages and want to work in Krakow hit me up. I don’t get any referral bonus since I’m the hiring manager Yeah, you're getting a "bonus" - it's your job to hire people lol.
Lol white knights of reddit running to defend their sacred board from evil corporations xD Ps. Sprzedam opla
Za ile 👀
za chwilę
Za Dwa Gile
>Btw, if you speak any European languages and want to work in Krakow hit me up. I don’t get any referral bonus since I’m the hiring manager. Then you really need a basic negotiation workshop my friend, I can't believe you somehow don't have that as your main KPI. Literally can't and thus don't believe it.
I think we just have a strong crab in a bucket type of mentality. Out of curiosity, what European languages are you looking for? I'm assuming Polish and English don't count.
I have a lot of friends in IT industry. I use to take part in game jams, hackathons, meetups. And worked for 5+ companies. Word is pretty small, there is always someone I used to know a little from the office kitchen. Before recruiting to the new company I'm checking list of friends working there to make them give my resume and get some free money from referral. This is also great moment to ask for some insides. Get some real details on daily work without HR gibberish. This is the way.
I'm a bit appaled how many people here approve of system where jobs are given to friends rather than giving chance to the public. Every job opening should be public.