It’s no secret that employee referrals often lead to great hires. Now more then ever, talent acquisition professionals are investing in their referral programs to generate more qualified employee referred candidates for their job openings.
Of all departments within an organization, sales seems the most ripe for this approach. After all, good sales people likely know other good sales people, and being financially motivated, have an additional incentive to help grow your sales team.
Today, while browsing through the my local Nextdoor.com site, I noticed a posting from an American Express employee, advertising a new sales opening with the company. While I have seen my fair share of employee referral promotional posts on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, this was the first one I’d seen on the Nextdoor platform, and I realized how valuable a channel that can be, considering there is likely a Nextdoor.com community for just about all of your US-based employees.
In terms of motivating your sales people to help recruit sales people, a referral bonus is nice, but would you consider offering them an “override” on all of the commission produced by the sales reps they refer, over their first year or two of employment?
Imagine the buy-in your sales reps would have if they knew they could not only help grow the team, but share in the financial success of their efforts doing so?
This approach wouldn’t be without it’s challenges, but might be worth experimenting with. After all, it’s the primary mechanism for growth in the multi-level marketing industry.
Whatever approach you ultimately take, as an organization looking to add sales professionals, you should no doubt be tapping your current sales reps to help make referrals. They know the right people, and will have plenty of incentive to take the time to do the outreach, like the American Express employee did on Nextdoor.com