Employee Referral
An employee referral is a candidate recommended by a current employee, usually through a formal programme that pays a bonus if the hire is made and stays.
Also known as: referral bonus, referral program
Referrals consistently perform well on cost per hire and on retention, for an unglamorous reason: the referrer has already filtered for fit and has some reputational stake in the outcome.
The bonus structure does the shaping. Paying entirely on joining rewards volume; splitting the payment between joining and a retention milestone rewards judgement. The second is slower and produces better referrals.
The risk worth naming is homogeneity. A workforce hiring from its own networks reproduces its own composition, so a referral-heavy pipeline needs a deliberate counterweight rather than an assumption that it will balance itself.
Handled in SignHR
Recruitment & Hiring
Recruitment & hiring — job openings, a drag-and-drop candidate pipeline, interview scorecards, offer letters and one-click convert-to-employee. No re-keying.
See recruitment & hiringRelated terms
Cost Per Hire
Cost per hire is total recruiting spend over a period divided by the number of hires made in it — the standard measure of what filling a role actually costs.
ATS (Applicant Tracking System)
An ATS is the system that manages hiring — job postings, applications, candidate pipelines, interview stages and offers — from requisition to accepted offer.
Attrition Rate
Attrition rate is the proportion of employees who leave over a period, expressed as separations divided by average headcount for that period.
Offer Letter
An offer letter is the document proposing employment — role, compensation, start date and key conditions — issued before the employee accepts and joins.