Referrals

Building rapport with our Candidates and Consultants allows us to network with them for leads and referrals. Our goal is to provide each candidate with an amazing experience that is uniquely Optomi. Today, nearly 27% of our placements come from referrals from our consultants and pre-screens. This network is invaluable and we need to ensure that we protect it and nurture it.

Every conversation you have could turn into an opportunity to build a relationship and expand your personal and professional network.

“Your network is your Net – Worth” – DG

REFERRAL PROGRAM: https://optomi.com/optomi-opportunities/referral/

Best Practices / Scenario:

After rapport is built with a candidate (during a prescreen or after) is a perfect opportunity to ask for referrals. Good candidates generally know other good candidates within IT, all you need to do is ask. Look at the example below that walks through a scenario:

EX:

You are just wrapping up a call with a Project Manager. You mention that we have strong openings within other skillsets such as: BA, QA, Dev, Infra, etc., You ask them if they would be willing to refer anyone to us? This is where you inform them of our incentivized referral program and how much they can earn (up to $2,250 for just 3 referrals).

Key Point: By asking for referrals within other skillsets outside of their own, it removes any conflict for the role they are potentially interested in with us.

Leads & Where to find them:

As a Tech Recruiter, you are one of our greatest assets in the organization not only for talent finding, but also business development. Each of you have your ears to the ground every day because of the candidates you talk to. Whether you are conducting searches, prescreens, references or at networking events, you have the opportunity to significantly help out our Account Executives with new business.

Conducting Searches

While you conduct daily searches, you are going to be exposed to candidates who are working on contract. You might even see candidates who post Sr. Business Analyst at XZY Staffing Firm. That already indicates that they are on contract at one of our competitors and could be a company we are targeting

Prescreens

While conducting Prescreens we have our biggest opportunity for obtaining leads.

Set the expectations before we go into the OFFER stage of the Prescreen. We should let the candidate know we are going to dive deep into their past work experience, learning more about the company they work for, how their team was structured, who they reported into, how they obtained the job (firm or by themselves), job type, and compensation.

WHY: We want to ask these types of questions, so we can better understand the candidate and what they would be open for down the road. This also gives us the ability to obtain a lead for one of our AE’s.

Reference Checks

Part of our unique process is providing references to our customers on the candidates we are presenting. Our competitors say they do this, but truly don’t. We require every candidate to provide us two professional references. Ideally, it would be great to get a manager/director at their most recent company.

Networking Events

Networking events is another simple way of obtaining leads. As you start going to a few different networking events you will have the opportunity to meet with both potential candidates and customers. If you find a networking group you like a lot and benefits you in your role, regular attendees will start to recognize you. This is a great way to start new relationships and soon could lead to referrals or future business!