HR folks: Do employee referrals actually help you get an interview? (job, companies)

[rummage]

I'm not talking about someone who works for the company who contacts the hiring manager on your behalf. Mostly large companies have a benefit for employees called a "referral bonus". It basically works like this. You contact someone who works at the company, and ask then to do a referral for you. This is for a specific job, and if you get hired and stay with the company a short period of time, the employee who referred you gets a referral bonus. In some cases they need your resume to do the employee referral and in other cases that don't request it at all.

I know this is a good thing benefit for the employee who works there, because it is getting money for very little work. It doesn't even require the employee to do anything more than put in your contact info and the job posting number.

If they don't even require your resume, I don't see how they can be vouching for your qualifications for the job.

But the real question I have for HR people, does getting a referral as I described from an employee actually mean anything in terms of selecting that person for an interview over others? Does the hiring manager know the employee was referred and by who?

[joe from dayton]

Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. We have done both. Also, the person is not selected over others in respect to bumping someone else in order to make room for them; they are added to the list as an extra interview. We as the hiring team decides who we are going to interview -- HR has nothing to do with it.