Please tell me about your employee referral program (if you have one).

November 15, 2007 7:52 AM

Please tell me about your employee referral program (if you have one).

Hi - I have been tasked with putting together an employee referral program for a 3 billion dollar global food ingredient company. (MMMMM corn syrup.)
I'd like to get a sense of what is in place at your organization to reward employees for referring candidates who are hired.

Any details you can share would be much appreciated. Thanks!

posted by mockjovial to work & money (13 comments total)

My current employer (~50 million/yr tech company) pays a $2500 bounty if you bring someone in and you're both working there in, IIRC, six months.
posted by Tomorrowful at 7:57 AM on November 15, 2007 [1 favorite]

We're about 250 people and I think we get $1000 for each referral (if you're both working there in 3 months). We also do a yearly drawing/bonus - the person with the most number of referrals gets an extra grand, I think. Last year there was some sort of raffle for everyone that brought in a referral and the prize was an HDTV.
posted by backseatpilot at 8:05 AM on November 15, 2007

My small tech employer pays different bonuses depending on how hard the position is to fill and whether it's full or part time, but they range from 1-5k, I think. The last place I worked for, a medium to smallish publicly traded tech company, entered you in a raffle for plane ticket vouchers (that place had good benefits in general, but that is a seriously lame referral bonus).
posted by phoenixy at 8:06 AM on November 15, 2007

mockjovial - I replied via MeFi mail
posted by jaimev at 8:08 AM on November 15, 2007

My large tech employer has 3 tiers of referrals. For Entry-ish level placements, it's $1000. For mid-level, $2000. And for low-level executives, it's either $3000 or $5000, I forget.

In all cases, half is paid out after three months, and the other half after six. It is not paid out in the case of fresh-out-of college referrals unless the person has been out of school and working for at least a year.
posted by Xoder at 8:21 AM on November 15, 2007

My large tech employer pays $1500 for a referral that results in a hire, and $500 for intern referrals.
posted by cmonkey at 8:58 AM on November 15, 2007

My company's goes like this:

Non-tech referrals: $1000
Tech referrals: $3-5000 depending on skillset sought

All bonuses are paid in three installments: 25% up front, 25% after one month, and the remaining 50% after six months (non-tech) or one year (tech).

There are also occasional recruitment drives (mostly on the tech side) where referrals pay $5-8K, under the same conditions as above, but that's only the case when a rare skill is needed and can't be found.
posted by pdb at 9:18 AM on November 15, 2007

Large construction company - $1k to $5k depending on what role the person fills. Half paid after 3 months and the other half after 6 months.
posted by moosedogtoo at 9:22 AM on November 15, 2007

I'm a consultant, and one of the things I help companies with is strategies for recruiting and retaining technical workers, so I've got some exposure into this (in one sector, anyway).

Most of the companies I work with offer some sort of bounty for selected positions -- it's usually between $1,500 and $5,000. Companies that are desperate for good talent tend to be on the lower end of the range, and offer it on fewer positions. One of the things that I tend to recommend to folks who already have good employees is that they raise the dollar figure, and make it apply to virtually all jobs -- not just the ones that have been unfilled for a month (or whatever).

My current client (a tech company, ~250 employees), pays $2500 to any employee or contractor who refers a new employee to any full-time position that pays less than $100k per year. Half is paid immediately, the other half after the new employee has been there six months.

For positions at or more than $100k, the company pays half of what it would pay a recruiter to fill the same position, paid in three pieces: on day 1, then three months, then nine months. This is a fairly generous offer, though I understand that it's increased the quality of their hires and reduced their recruiting costs -- they feel it's a winner all around.

I'd hate to be the guy that brought in the $99k employee, though.
posted by toxic at 9:25 AM on November 15, 2007

$1500 - half one month after the hire and the other half at 6 months.
posted by langeNU at 9:35 AM on November 15, 2007

My company pays £1000 for referrals if both referrer and referee are still employed in six months. Most of the vacancies are entry level.
posted by happyturtle at 9:50 AM on November 15, 2007

$2500 per referral for a medium-sized technology firm.
posted by ckolderup at 11:38 AM on November 15, 2007

I work for a small software company in the UK. Employees who refer new hires are paid a bonus equal to 7.5% of the hire's annual salary (capped at £4,000) once the new employee successfully completes their probation period (typically three months).
posted by kyten at 5:03 PM on November 15, 2007