When it comes to finding talent, ‘sourcing jams’ have well and truly gatecrashed the party. Employee referral parties are a great way to source talent, but how can these events make your life easier and help you build a winning team?

What is an employee referral party?

An employee referral party, also known as a sourcing jam, is a recruitment event where a company invites their employees to recommend the talented people in their network. Referral parties have long been popular in the tech industry, but can be beneficial to any company looking to assemble a great team as they scale-up.

How does a referral party work?

Typically, an employee referral party might last an hour. The event can take place either in-person or online; either way, you could ask guests to populate a shared doc with their recommended contacts. Your employees may scour through their LinkedIn and Facebook contacts, or even their ‘memory palace’ a.k.a. their brains, to remember some of the talented folks from their past.

And yes, you can order pizza.

Why organise a referral party?

The old way of doing recruitment is going the way of the dodo. Here are just some of the reasons to crack open the canapés at your next sourcing jam.

• Generate leads. Ultimately, you can’t win the ‘war on talent’ if you don’t know where to look. By pooling together your finest minds, you can rack up greater numbers of leads, giving you more options when shortlisting those candidates who are yes, no or maybe.
• Reduce costs. The old way of recruiting is like festival food: too expensive for the quality you’re getting. By leveraging referrals and going direct-to-talent, you can avoid overpriced recruitment fees. What’s more, if the candidate is as good as you’re led to believe, you won’t have to fork out so much in rehiring costs.
• Faster recruitment. All too often, the hiring process moves at the speed of a tortoise who’s taken sleeping pills. A sourcing jam means less time sifting through a mountain of CVs, and perhaps a shorter interview process thanks to the reassurance of your employee’s recommendation.
• Greater representation. A sourcing jam can be an opportunity to generate leads from underrepresented backgrounds. Personal recommendations can be a useful way of identifying candidates who may otherwise be filtered out by systemic barriers to entry. By broadening your pool of leads at the referral party stage, you and your hiring managers can decide which candidates are likely to contribute to an inclusive workplace culture.
• Increase engagement. Who doesn’t like the idea of working with their mates? Candidates are 46% more likely to respond to a job proposition when they are approached by someone they know. If your employees have enjoyed successful working relationships in the past, getting the band back together could boost morale, enhance the team chemistry, and as a bonus, your best talent might stick around longer.
  

How to organise a referral party

Sourcing jams are the bread and butter of an effective recruitment strategy. But how can you get the party started? Here are three tips:

1. Prioritise key roles. It’s important to know which vacancy you’re looking to fill as your priority number one. If you come away with lots of leads for one key position, that could ultimately be a game-changer for your company.
2. Incentivise your team. Your team are probably a lovely bunch, but they’re not necessarily going to open their contact book if there’s nothing in it for them. Offering a prize to the person who offers the most leads could help get results.
3. Keep it short but sweet. We all know when we’ve outstayed our welcome at a party, and when it comes to a sourcing jam, an hour is usually a good length of time to hold everyone’s attention.
   

Read more tips and tricks on how to run a referral jam.

Transform your access to talent with Intrro

Not every party ends with a hangover. Intrro can be your gateway to finding talent and enable you to organise an employee referral party in the cloud. You can prioritise jobs that need filling, and invite co-workers that you would like to jam with. With Intrro, a diverse field of talent is matched with open jobs in your colleagues’ networks. In short, this is one party with great vibes and even better outcomes.

Discover how our platform can introduce you to diverse, qualified and capable personnel within minutes.

Discover Intrro today.