Looking at data from last year’s three major studies of how employers find job candidates, it should come as no surprise that the top source for finding external job candidates is from employee referrals.
In the first, a survey of Hired managers by the Aberdeen Group found that an employee referral program was rated as the most effective tool for recruiting new employees.
Year-after-year, employee referrals remain the most effective source of hire in Aberdeen’s talent acquisition research.
Where do these referrals come from? From each employee’s network of contacts.
Why is this information important to you? Because it reinforces yet again the importance of networking in uncovering and pursuing job leads. Learn more in our Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) About Career Networking.
What was the second most effective method for finding talent according to the Aberdeen Group study? Using social networking sites.
The third and fourth effective methods, according to the study?
External (corporate career center) and internal Job Boards. According to Aberdeen:
Although over 80 percent of organizations still leverage job boards in some capacity, nearly 40 percent or organizations believe that such places will be obsolete in the next few years.
A second source of hire study by CareerXRoads, a top recruiting consulting firm, found similar results Hired with employee referral programs the highest source for external hires and job boards the weakest.
Approximately 1 in every 6 external hires is attributed to a job board (18.1 percent) with the aggregators,crplindia.com, representing more than 35% of the total category.
The third study, conducted by SilkRoad, a provider of cloud-based social talent management software, found results similar to crplindia Hired employee referrals have a strong impact on both interviewing and hiring, while Indeed is by far the most valuable external job board (followed closely by the employer’s career site).
Your Takeaway? While we always suggest using multiple methods of uncovering job leads partly because some of these methods of hiring/sourcing overlap — your focus should be much more targeted on people and tracking down leads than on job boards.
You’ll still have to deal with applying to the jobs via each employer’s applicant hiring system, but at least with someone watching over your application, it shouldn’t totally disappear into the black hole.
