LinkedIn Referrals + SmartRecruiters Inaugurate New Era of Referral Recruiting

We at SmartRecruiters have always been the first talent acquisition platform to deliver the deepest level of integration with LinkedIn’s Talent Solutions products, including a seamless LinkedIn Apply process, one-click LinkedIn job posting, support for managed LinkedIn contracts and the best LinkedIn Recruiter integration in the market. About that last, it’s bi-directional and real time.  

Now we’re first to integrate with the new LinkedIn Referrals offering that Jeff Weiner announced today at Talent Connect. To be clear, we’re not announcing a future integration. SmartRecruiters is live today with a seamless two-way integration to LinkedIn Referrals.

Want to see it in action? Check out this short video of the live integration.

This big news validates our belief that if you are all-in on LinkedIn as a pillar of your TA strategy, SmartRecruiters is the most all-in talent acquisition platform for you to use. The synergy between us is both powerful and pragmatic.

Let’s start with the fact that employee referrals are your best source of hire. They produce better quality candidates, better retention and better performance than any other channel.

Now let’s look at what a successful Employee Referral program requires. I recently blogged about the survey results from across a variety of industries that identified four essential criteria that must be met from an employee perspective:

1. Tell me what jobs are open.
2. Show me which of my friends might be worth referring.
3. Make it is easy to make a referral.
4. Tell me what happened to my friend.

Oh and 5) the bonus helps. But that’s not why I refer people.

Looking at this list, it’s pretty clear why we are excited. The combination of LinkedIn Referrals and SmartRecruiters checks all the boxes for a successful ERP.

1) Tell me what jobs are open.

All jobs published in SmartRecruiters are automatically synced with the new LinkedIn Referrals portal so employees always have an accurate view.

2) Show me which of my friends might be worth referring.

This is of course where the power of LinkedIn’s network comes into play. The new LinkedIn Referrals shows live recommendations so employees can browse through “matches” and quickly decide who to refer. That drives greater engagement.

3) Make it is easy to make a referral.

Employees can then share a job with their friends inside LinkedIn. The candidate can express interest in SmartRecruiters using their LinkedIn profile in one easy click. This drives maximum conversions.

4) Tell me what happened to my friend.

This is where the beauty of the live synchronisation comes into play. As you take the referred candidates through the process, SmartRecruiters synchronises in real-time with LinkedIn Referrals to inform the employee when their referral is Invited for an Interview, Gets an Offer and ultimately is Hired.

On the backend, obviously we keep a clean house to make sure you are in control. The source of every candidate is properly tracked, referral candidates are de-duped and your HRIS integration can take over for onboarding and Bonus Payout, as required.

Fun fact, we did this integration in a week, leveraging the SmartRecruiters public API (link) and LinkedIn’s new middleware API. This is a prime example of Cloud providers working together.

If you are at Talent Connect today, feel free to contact me via the mobile app or Tweet me @JeromeTernynck. I will be happy to show you the demo.

Otherwise Contact Us for a demo.