This is something we never hear at Tangent International...
We pride ourselves in our brand and the values we live day in day out. One of our 4 values to “Be a good corporate citizen” coincides perfectly with this point. Tangent consultants deal with the best quality candidates daily and with that comes strong candidate networks. A question every recruiter should ask when they are in a call with a candidate “Do you have any friends or ex colleagues that would be interested in this role?” It opens up networks, builds stronger and better relationships and benefits our company massively. We have learnt that offering, and actually paying, referral fees for successfully placed candidates really does make a difference in the amount of referrals coming through to us. And best of all, we always pay what we’ve offered.
From our own survey consisting of our candidates that we work with, that have worked with other agencies in the past, it showed that a staggering 67% of people were not paid for their referral fees in which they were promised.
Why is it so important to pay referral fees?
A key part to any professional relationship is trust and being able to trust the people you are working with, whether this is to close a big money deal or show up for your first assignment on time. If you are a professional individual, you should always follow through with your promises to the people you work with to build strong future relationships. If a referral fee is promised to you from your recruiter, no matter how big or small it is, it should be paid on time without any bumps along the road. If it is not paid, what does this tell you about the recruiter you are working with?
Are they dishonest? Are they unprofessional? What else have they said to me in the past that is not true?
It will be clear in the candidates’ mind that the trust that has been built in the past has now been dissolved, and any future working relationships have now been tarnished.
Back in the middle of 2017, our candidate we placed in the Caribbean sent us over 2 referrals who were both successfully placed in the same project. It was nice of him to thank us for following through with what we had agreed with him.
The effects of losing trust from the candidates you work with?
It is quite clear that trust is most certainly a key factor in all working professional relationships, imagine the damage you can cause for not keeping up your end of the bargain; firstly for you as a recruiter, but most importantly the company you are working for and representing. Candidates speak between themselves in their networks, and if one has a bad experience with you they will ensure to make the news spread to damage your chances of working with any of their peers in the future.
At Tangent, we promise to pay and we see the importance of keeping our promises.
We aim to build and keep relationships with everyone that we work with, and a good way of doing this is keeping up our end of the bargain. Keeping our promises is our first point of call, as you never know when you will need to call upon that particular consultant services again in the near future. Just because the consultant is not on a contract mission or working in a permanent role for us, it does not mean we do not value them as a key individual that can help us in our niche searches for our requirements with their network. We pay once the person who has been referred has been has been successful and completed their first working day.
We are currently offering £250.00 for each referral successfully placed in Change, Transformation and Project Management roles. Send your recommendations to Phil Rabout at phil.rabout@tanint.com
