BrightSpyre Guide: Setting up Employee Referral Program

Among the best recruiting strategies used by the employers today, employee referral has gained the most popularity. It not only helps in low cost recruiting by minimizing the amount of resources (time, people and money) spent on advertisements, career pages and headhunting firms but also results in increased employee motivation by paying them a referral bonus and by involving them in the recruiting process.

If we look at the statistics,

• 82% of the employers rated employee referral as a recruiting method with the best Return on Investment (Direct employers association recruiting survey).
• 88% of the employers stated that employee referral gives the highest quality of new hires as compared to any other method. (Direct employers association recruiting survey).
• Employee referrals are the fastest time to fill. It takes 29 days to fill a position through employee referrals, 39 days for job boards and 45 days through career pages. (Jobvite index 2012)
• Employees hired through referrals have 46% retention rate after one year as compared to job boards which is 22% and career sites which is 33%. (Jobvite index 2012)
• The applicant to hire ratio of employee referrals is 1 out of 3 applications for top performing firms and 1 out of 10 applications for average performing firms. (Dr. John Sullivan and associates research 2008-2011)
• Employee referrals are the most productive source for diversity hires as compared to any other source. (CareerXroads 2011-2012).

How to set up an employee referral program

To set up an employee referral system, a company must follow the given steps:

1. Determine the incentive/ referral bonus

The first step is to determine the incentive that the employees will get in return for referring a candidate. The incentive could be a cash bonus, extra vacation or any other monetary or non monetary reward. In most of the cases, the incentive happens to be the cash bonus. The bonus could be different for different positions e.g. for a position like an IOS developer which is difficult to fill, the bonus could be more than any other position. If we talk about Pakistan, the referral bonus may vary from PKR 10,000/- to 20,000/- ranging from easy to hard to fill positions.

2. Determine the rules for paying the referral bonus:

The next step is the form a procedure for paying the referral bonus. This is important to make sure that the right candidates are being referred who are actually hired and plan to stick to the company. The bonus could be paid according to the following guidelines:

• 50% of the bonus amount is paid to the employee at the time of joining of the new candidate.
• Remaining 50% of the bonus is paid after successful completion of the probation period of the candidate.
• If an employee is hired for a different job than the one he was referred for, then the HR department will check following:
• If the referred applicant is hired for a job where referral award scheme does not apply, no payment will be given to the employee.
• If the referred applicant is hired for a job where referral award scheme exists then the payment will be given to the employee based on the job offered.

• If the candidate referred by the employee is hired within the 6 months by the organization, then the employee will get payment according to the award associated with that job.
• If referee leaves the organization before the completion of referred person’s probation then only 25% of remaining amount will be given at the time of settlement.

3. Determine a referral method

Third step is to determine a referral method. i.e. what procedure should the employees follow to refer a candidate. The employees could be given access to a website with “refer a friend” option. The website displays all the current vacancies. The employees can thus identify the names and contact information of the referred candidates against any particular job. The candidate in turn, could be asked during the application process about who referred him/her.

4. Train the employees and track the referrals

With the implementation of an employee referral program, the employees would be participating in the recruitment process; therefore, it’s important to train them on making contacts and networking. They must be encouraged to use social media and other sources that could lead to more qualified referrals. Moreover, the company should also keep track of the referrals and make sure that the bonus is paid to the employees on time.

This document is written by Nida Riaz HR Manager at BrightSpyre.com. You may contact the writer at nida@cogilent.com

Global shift in recruiting trends and challenges for Pakistan

Recruiting includes all the organizational practices and decisions that affect either the number or types of individuals willing to apply for and accept job offers. It is different from sourcing as sourcing only deals with “locating” the qualified individuals and labor markets from which to recruit. Recruiting is to actually reach out to the prospective candidates.

Recruiting strategies and methods have evolved over the period of time all over the globe. However, still there is a great variance in the use of preferred methods depending on the size of the organization if we talk about one country and the laws, regulations, economic condition and culture when it comes to different countries.

In today’s world, internet has become the biggest player in the recruitment war for talent. Like all other countries, Pakistan has taken full advantage of e-recruiting and most of the companies are using internet in different forms to hunt the qualified candidates. BrightSpyre.com has been the pioneer in Internet Recruitment in Pakistan. It is the most trusted brand in Pakistan and has a member base of 1 million users.

There are still many areas where Pakistan needs to focus. Let’s have a look at the popular recruiting methods being used in US today and to what level they are practiced in Pakistan.

Employee referral:

According to industry surveys, employee referrals are the most effective and commonly used recruiting method in the fortune 500 companies in US today. Asking your best talent to recommend the best people they’ve worked within the past or people they feel would be good performers can generate high quality leads. Research shows that employee-referred candidates remain on the job three times longer than other applicants. Employee referrals help the employers to shorten the recruitment process, save the advertising costs and access qualified candidates. Top companies have an employee-referral hiring rate greater than 50%. For every candidate referred, a referral bonus is given to the employee if the candidate gets selected for the job. Google gives $2000 for referring employees who remain for 60 days. Apple hires 30% of its workforce through employee referrals and gives $1000 to $10,000 as referral bonus depending on the position.

In Pakistan, the employers are still hesitant to use employee referral as a key recruiting method. Some of the companies in telecom sector do realize its importance and use it as an additional recruiting technique but still they need to implement it in a way to get its real benefits.

Brightspyre however, has been helping its client organizations in designing employee referral programs. The referral programs have significantly improved the quality of hiring, increased employee motivation and helped save the resources in terms of time and money for the organizations.

Social media:

Social media websites are very commonly used by the recruiters in US today to seek for passive yet qualified job candidates and to match them to the right job/profession. Research has shown that more than 92% of the companies in US use social media for recruiting. Moreover, 7 out of 10 employers have successfully hired a candidate through social media. The most commonly used social networking websites are linkedIn, facebook and twitter, etc. LinkedIn is growing its network with 2 new users joining every second. From the year 2009-2012, the number of users on linkedIn has increased from 45 million to 161 million with more than 2 million company pages, facebook users have increased from 250 million to 901 million and those of twitter have increased from 25 million to 300 million. Overall, there is an increase of 305% in the use of social media all over the world. One out of every 7 people referred through social media have been hired. All these websites are serving as a huge recruiting pool for the hiring managers and recruiters and no company can afford to ignore this media for locating and attracting candidates. Many companies are using these sites to advertise jobs, source candidates and communicate with the potential candidate and have considerably reduced their recruiting expenses.

IBM has launched its TalentVine site which allows IBM employees to share the job openings on their social networks and allow their friends and families to apply for positions and earn extra money too. Microsoft recently saved £60,000 on recruitment costs by using LinkedIn to find candidates for a new project.

In Pakistan, recruiters have started using linkedIn to search for passive candidates who possess rare skill sets or work at a level and position where they are satisfied with their current jobs and saies. Such candidates neither apply for jobs online nor they respond to job advertisements. One example of such candidates is the software developers who excel in the latest technology and the demand for their technical skills is very high in the market.

Facebook and twitter however are not as famous in Pakistan for recruiting as is linkedIn. Some companies do have their company page on facebook which they use to post jobs but these sites are not aggressively being used for recruiting so far.

Brightspyre is extensively using social media sites to post jobs and recruit people. Our linkedIn group has been followed by more than 8000 members from different professions. Similarly, BrightSpyre’s facebook and twitter pages keep the followers well informed about the upcoming jobs and updates on the company’s initiatives.

Employer branding

Employer branding is the image of the organization as a “great place to work”. If the employers convey to the world why their workplace is appealing and unique, they will have an easier time attracting good workers. The key to employer branding is to align the company’s brand with its business plan. i.e. to attract the people who are most needed by the company.

In employer branding, the “product” of the company is the employment experience it offers, and the “customers” of this product are current and prospective staff.

According to a recent linkedIn survey, Google is the world’s most in demand Employer brand, followed by Apple, Microsoft, Facebook and Unilever rounding out the top five.

Employer branding is yet to become a source of recruiting employees in Pakistan. Employers here are still reluctant to invest time and money in creating an employer brand. However, by creating more awareness about the concept backed up with its long term benefits, there is a chance that employer branding will be considered as an important recruiting strategy in the coming years.

Poaching & Acqui-hire:

Poaching is the latest mantra being followed by the top organizations in US today. Poaching means attracting a competent and skilled person already working with another reputed company, often a competitor, by offering him attractive benefits and perks, better than his current employer. Employee poaching often happens in the IT industry because of high-demand of technical skills and accounts for 30% of the total movement in labor.

Some of the top US organizations practicing poaching aggressively as a recruiting strategy include Apple, Google, Intel and Facebook. Google has a team of individuals specialized in and dedicated for poaching only.

Apart from poaching, there is a recently introduced term called “acqui hire”. It happens when the big giants in tech industry are willing to buy the whole company just because they want to acquire their team of skilled developers and engineers. "Having two or three extremely talented engineers can be worth their weight in gold," says John Coyle, a law professor at the University of North Carolina.

Poaching and acqui-hire are the phenomenons way too elite for Pakistani industry. Poaching requires an employer to go far and beyond its limits to attract and raid a competitor’s employee. Pakistani companies try to play it safe and do not normally go that far to recruit. The reason could be the economic condition of the country and the availability of talent in the market due to bad job situation.

Pakistan still needs to go a long way to keep itself updated and in line with the changing trends in recruiting. The employers would need to think beyond the traditional recruiting approaches and build trust in their employees and themselves while going out hunting people. With the increase in awareness and spread of success stories, we might witness a steady yet significant change in Pakistani recruitment as well.

BrightSpyre -- IT skills requirements in Pakistan

Core Programming is highest demand skill.* see details

In Pakistan, 140 Universities are registered with higher education commission; about 80 of them offer Computer Science, Software Engineer, Information Technology and related disciplines BS or MS degrees. Annually, 11,000 IT students graduate from these universities. It is understood, that universities need to develop and foster skills that are required in the industry where students get employment opportunities.

Pakistan has a growing IT industry. There are about 500 to 800 IT and IT enabled companies in Pakistan. IT graduates get jobs in other industries where IT and computer softwares are deployed -- this means everywhere in today’s world IT professionals/ IT skilled personnel are required. In addition to this, IT organisations outside Pakistan provide employment opportunities to IT graduates. If a student is studying computer science then preference industry for students is IT industry. This is why Silicon valley exists in the neighbourhood of universities like Stanford and Barkeley.

Most of the companies in IT sector in Pakistan need to hire good quality software engineers. At the same time, they face a-lot of issues in hiring good quality engineers, programmers, network engineers, DBAs, quality assurance engineers and mid and high manager level candidates.

BrightSpyre.com the leading job site in Pakistan interacts regularly with the academia and IT industry. At, BrightSpyre.com many IT companies advertise their jobs. At the same time recruitment department at BrightSpyre offers recruitment services to the IT companies. Many a times, it is hard to find right candidates in IT sector as compared to other sectors.

After a lot brainstorming, BrightSpyre came to the conclusion of doing a massive survey upon all the companies comes under IT Umbrella. BrightSpyre is happy to deliver the first version of the report to all the universities and IT students in Pakistan to understand the skills requirements of the IT industry.

We contacted IT companies in Pakistan through emails, phone calls, personal visits to understand their current skill sets through a survey form. We distributed this questionnaire to 400 companies, however 90 of them provided us information.

BrightSpyre team kept the survey short and asked following questions from IT companies in Pakistan

Q 1. Identify the key area you are hiring in ?

Q 2. Where (Programming Language) it is hard to find quality programmers ?

Q 3. Job positions that are hard to fill?

Some BrightSpyre statistics on job applications

Brightspyre.com statistics shows that whenever we post job on our website we get huge response and get right person at right position, unfortunately, if we talk about IT Experts positions, this is dilemma that we do not get fill these positions, neither we find right candidate. 
These statistics are shown in the graph below:

The report of the survey shows that IT companies mostly hire people in Core Programming, and brightspyre.com recommend students to be expert in computer programming. Survey shows that there is a huge demand of IT experts in mobile developer/iphone developer, Software engineer(java), andriod expert. Also it is concluded that companies mostly hire people with skill set of C#, Java, PHP, Java Script, Python.  

Conclusion:

Brightspyre.com provided a platform where companies and students can directly coordinate,
Students now on a single click can get information about technology companies from our website. Companies now can get their desired applicants by posting jobs on Brightspyre.

Do you know what answer you got from this report? 
Q: Why most of students doesn't get job even being qualified?
Q: you think you possess right talent?
Q: what is actually the real market requirement?

Milestone:

This report is the first phase of our research, we will be carrying it all the technology companies. Review of 400 companies will be our next stage, which is in process and will publicize soon. Later we will find problems in other sectors like telecommunications, Oil & Gas etc.
Participants:

We pay special thanks to all those companies who help us in generating such useful report and who filled questionnaire and took part in this problem solving survey.

Contact us:

209-A, 2nd floor,
Evacuee Trust Complex
F-5/1, Islamabad.
Ph: 051-2871173-75
Email: mubashir@cogilent.com

Brightspyre Job Fair at SZABIST, Islamabad.

Brightspyre took part in job fair which was organized by SZABIST Islamabad on 11th of Dec 2012 at H-8 campus. Event was excellent and very informative for students and developed good interaction between corporate sector. Companies representatives introduced their companies to visitors and answered their questions. Most of the companies arranged walk-in interviews and provided information of their recruitment process.

Brightspyre, with full zeal and commitment took part in this event, keeping in mind that most of the graduates and undergraduates are already our users, brought internship programs and hot jobs for the students.

Almost 100 students filled application forms for internship program with Brightspyre and more than 150 students were guided to apply for permanent posts via brightspyre. Students took great interest in brightspyre services and were keen to become part of brightspyre as internee.

Brightspyre shared IT Technology companies project upon skills scarcity with students and faculty members. Presentation of this survey report was held on the same day and got appreciation from attendees, who took active part by asking questions.

Brightspyre arranged interviews of the shortlisted candidates on the same day and offered Paid Internship programs to undergraduates.

TESTIMONIALS.....

Shahid Sultan

Manager Administration

Internews Pakistan

Job search is always a tough job itself. There are many job hunting sites but I found brightspyre one of the reliable and much authenticated. I have my account on Brightpsyre since last few years. I am glad to announce that I got my current job through Brighspyre and I prefer to hunt jobs through Brighspyre.I can have easy and reliable access to thousands of jobs on my one click through BS.

Best of Luck to all Job Seekers.

Muhammad Qasim

My name is Muhammad Qasim working as Logistics Advisor in an International organization and I have been hired through Brightspyre job hunting website.

I came back to Pakistan November 2011 completing my 18^th month mission from Haiti (Central America) in the response of earthquake 2010 as Logistics Manager. When I came to Pakistan I was looking for the right door to find to right job within right time I registered myself on Brightspyre website and I started receiving jobs alerts accordingly and I did apply for the job through Brightspyre and got right job by Brightspyre in very short time. I believe Brightspyre is the right door, right source to find right job in right organization on right time which put your career into right direction for the future aspiration and career growth. Brightspyre is the way where young and experienced professional can explore theirs, Qualification, skills, and experience for the right organization and better future career growth and advancement in their particular field. I am very thankful to Brightspyre by using it I got right job on right time and I wish best of luck that using Brightspyre job searching.

Omparkash Bhatia
Senior Monitoring and Evaluation Officer
Internews Pakistan

Ofcourse this is a good resource to find and to get job. I am regular surfer of this portal and I also get regular information. This is the reason I found job in Internews Europe and finally I got it. But this also needs some followup process to get reasons for not considering the candidate by Brightspyre or an organization and there should be some suggestions for candidate to improve for further. At this stage I can say that I am successful user of this source.

Testimonial from PMN:

We have recently hired a Research Associate using the job advertising services of Brightspyre. The use of BrightSpyre’s services made the hiring process much easier for us, in terms of both savings in time as well as reduced time span of the recruitment and selection process itself. We were able to narrow down to the most relevant candidates, on the basis of short listing carried out by Brightspyre using the eligibility criteria that we had developed for the position in question. We then administered a short skills based test to the short listed candidates, followed by interviews to select our final candidate.

Based on our experience, I strongly recommend that employers make use of BrightSpyre’s recruitment services to meet their HR requirements and hire the best available individuals in the job market.   

Testimonial from Hira Arshed: PMN

Hired for “Research Associate”
I got my job directly from Brightspyre, which makes it a prime source of job hunting for me. So much so that after I got my job, I recommended everyone to keep an eye on BrightSpyre, and that they wouldn’t really need to go through news papers or other job sites while using Brightspyre.

Other features, besides access to a comprehensive, updated database of jobs, Brightspyre has a very user friendly interface that lists all the jobs with upcoming deadlines, locations, and especially the “closing in 72 hours” box that enables me to keep up with my deadlines.  In addition, the job application process is much easier than other site portals.
I believe that Brightspyre has great potential to improve their systems, even then it is still the best place for job hunting due to its variety of job listings, and I would highly recommend that every job seeker must stay tuned to it.

Basit Nadeem
Television Mentor, Internews Pakistan

Brightspyre.com  has helped me format my resume to the highest standards available to attract the right employersand I got job in Internews europe by applying through brightspyre.com.

Thank you brightspyre and I definitely recommend you to jobs seekers.

InamUllah: Logistics Management Information Advisor.

In this era of recession finding a good job has become very tough.  But I must say that BrightSpyre played a very important role in my life. I uploaded my cv and after a very short period of time I received an interview call from Brightspyre and final interview call from JSI International NGO. I got hired in JSI through BrightSpyre. I am very thankful to BrightSpyre who helped me getting my dream job. I hope it will support me in future as well.

Brightspyre, last 6 months distinctions

Last 6 months distinctions

(Key Accounts)

       

  

            More than 1,053,000 registered users  data base, with increasing rate of 300 members per day.

       And 28,800 Published jobs, with increasing rate of 25 jobs per day.

Key Projects

A Christian Humanitarian Organization, Dedicated to working with children, families and their communities worldwide to reach their full potential by tracking the path of poverty and injustice.

Brightspyre providing services to world vision since 2009 in the areas of job advertisement, job portal, HR solutions and now designed a complete Pay Roll system.

To logon to their job portal visit: www.brightspyre.com

Faisal Chohan, a Senior TED Fellow, pitched Saaf Pindi — a mapping project with a mission of improving sanitation, and therefore preventing cholera, in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. Cholera is the second leading cause of death in South Asia, made particularly rampant by unsafe sanitation conditions. In fact, only 18% of Pakistanis have access to proper sewerage infrastructure. Chohan proposes using open mapping technology to track where un-treated waste is being dumped into rivers and canals near people’s homes. Subsequent stages will include mapping hospital reports on water borne diseases to keep citizens informed.

John Snow, Inc., and our nonprofit JSI Research & Training Institute, Inc., are public health management consulting and research organizations dedicated to improving the health of individuals and communities throughout the world.

They have chosen brightspyre for hiring of their top managers and decision making head of departments. Brightspyre completed that task within given time span and got appreciation.

Microfinance sector provides basic financial services to the poor. It’s a unique industry with double bottom-line objectives. It is thus imperative to have financially viable and robust organizations and industry in order to achieve our social objectives of financial inclusion and social changes. Thus recruiting and retaining good quality human resource base is an important ingredient for this industry to achieve its dual objectives with efficacy.

Brightspyre designed Salary survey report and made effective head hunting for MFN. The purpose and scope of the study is to provide overview and comparisons of the salaries both within the microfinance industry and with its competitive industries that is the NGO and banking sector.

Salary comparisons within the microfinance sector

Microfinance sector comprises of close to 45-50 organizations. 8 of the organizations are mainly in the financial industry (MFBs) and remaining are not for profit organizations called MFIs. The size of the organizations varies from minimum of 19 to maximum 1,429 employees.

A broad brushing of salary scales of the microfinance industry indicates a maximum monthly salary of Rs.1.9M at the senior management level with a minimum salary of Rs.7k at the lower management level.

 Pakistan has important strategic endowments and development potential. The country is located at the crossroads of South Asia, Central Asia, China and the Middle East and is thus the fulcrum of a regional market with a vast population, large and dicerse resources, and untapped potential for trade. The increasing proportion of Pakistan’s working-age population provides the country with a potential demographic dividend but also with the critical challenge to provide adequate services and increase employment.

Population	176,745,364	2011
GDP	$211,091,994,819	2011
GDP growth	2.3%	2011
Inflation	18.9%	2011

Bright spyre developed world bank Intranet, to connect world bank offices in Pakistan.

We at brightspyre have another pride of developing website for world bank Pakistan.

Premier knowledfe management company on technology up gradation and related skill and the first choice of the Government of Pakistan, provincial governments and multi funding agencies to implement initiatives to enhance innovation,creativity, entrepreneurship and competitiveness at the firm's level. TUSDEC uses Brightspyre.com for hiring of its most senior managers.

        

Crown Agents is an international development specialist working with leaders across the world to make profound changes to systems, organisations and society. Our expertise in public finance, banking, investment, institutional development, supply chain and training enables governments to increase prosperity, reduce poverty and improve health. We take on challenging work and deliver extraordinary results time and time again. People choose and return to Crown Agents because we are resourceful and honest with the know-how and tenacity needed to achieve lasting change

Crown Agent, do their top level head hunting through www.brightspyre.com.

ACF works to improve the lives of vulnerable populations throughout Pakistan. ACF provide emergency relief after natural disasters, give lifesaving treatment to malnourished children, and run longer-term programs that ensure sustainable access to food and income.

Brightspyre helps ACF in their emergency hiring via advertising and short listings of right candidates. 

FFBL is the only fertilizer complex in Pakistan producing DAP fertilizer and Granular Urea thus making significant contribution towards agricultural growth of the country by meeting 45% of the demand of DAP and 13% of Urea in domestic market Brightspyre is maintaining its complete career portal, with on-line roll numbers which are useful in on-line test and interview process.