A new cottage industry has arisen: pay-to-play referrals.
Employees are hip to the idea that employers want referred candidates over unsolicited ones, so these entrepreneurial employees have monetized their own referral databases by charging job-seekers for the right to mention them in their applications.
This both underscores the imperative of networking into companies AND gums up the hiring process with less qualified candidates.
What’s that mean for you?
TRANSCRIPT:
OO:01
OK, there’s a new cottage industry that stemmed out of the job search process and out of this like extremely difficult job search market.
00:12
And what’s happening is employees of sought-after companies are now charging job seekers to be their referrer, so to vouch for them as somebody they know when they apply.
00:29
So I have a couple of thoughts on this.
00:30
The 1st is this really does under score the importance or rather imperative of having somebody on the inside when you apply for a job.
00:41
So if there is a job opening, you really have to be able to reference somebody and that is sort of made clear.
00:49
The value of that’s made clear in this new markets that that’s emerged where people are making money for offering that to job seekers.
01:00
The other thought I had is this is further breaking down the system.
01:05
So what’s happening?
01:06
You have these somewhat mercenary employees that are don’t really care who you are as a job seeker.
01:14
You’re a complete stranger, but they’re taking your money.
01:18
Or whatever other favor they’re getting and then dropping your name into a database.
01:24
So you might not be qualified, or this person candidate might not be qualified, but they’re making it into the funnel to get to that hiring manager who will eventually realize, oh, this person’s not qualified.
01:37
Hopefully that happens early in the screening process, but probably not.
01:41
They might get through to interviewing.
01:43
They are a referral after all.
01:46
So that’s going to be a problem because there’s so many factors that are contributing to all of these candidates coming into even small companies, but certainly big ones.
01:56
And now this is one more factor, the fact that employee referrals are getting saturated with spam.
02:07
So what does this mean for you?
02:09
I think it comes back to the same thing and that is.
02:14
Networking in genuinely finding people you know who you trust, who trust you, who will vouch for you.
02:24
High quality referral, super important.
02:30
And if you can, you want to try to find your way into a company before they’re even posting for a job.
02:36
But certainly if there is a job, see if you can find something, some way to get in there.
02:41
It it makes all the difference.
02:44
In the world, All right.
02:45
I’m curious to hear your thoughts on on these ideas and also just hear how the job search is going.
02:53
Good luck out there.
