Approximately 82% of U.S. employers use employee referrals to source, identify, and shortlist candidates, according to an Aptitude Research survey undertaken in 2022.
However, despite the apparent widespread usage of this hiring practice, many of these programs fail to obtain the talent they need—in part because employees are unaware or the process is not user experience-friendly, and also because when candidates are looking for a job, they fail to tap into their network.
This concept is known as the hidden job market.
What Is The Hidden Job Market?
The hidden job market is simply all the job opportunities that are available, which are not advertized publicly via recruitment agencies, job boards, or the employer’s career site. There is a vast amount of untapped potential in these jobs because they are “hidden,” which means there is less competition and you have a chance to impress the employer and make your stamp before any other candidate catches wind of the opportunity.
Additionally, through your proactiveness and networking skills, you are already showcasing two of the most essential soft skills employers need you to have to succeed within your new role.
Employers are more likely to trust candidate suggestions from their own employees, as not only is it a cheaper and more efficient way to hire, but after all, who would know best about the company culture, values, and demands of the role more than internal staff?
How To Get A Job Through A Referral
To access this hidden job market, follow these steps:
- Make a list of 10 employers you would like to work for.
- Find each of these 10 employers on LinkedIn via their company pages.
- Follow their LinkedIn company page.
- Now, navigate to the people section of their company page.
- Filter this section by your desired location.
- In the box that allows you to search via keywords, you can type in the job titles of those who would work within your department.
- Once you have these people listed, proceed to connect with them and engage them regularly on their posts.
- Send these connections a message via LinkedIn and tell them that you’re interested in working at their company, and ask them if they have any fresh opportunities available or know of any requisitions that will be released within the next few weeks/months, that you should look out for.
- Ask them for a referral or an introduction to the hiring manager.
- Repeat this process for 10 more employers, and so on.
Bear in mind that you must be very patient with this process, as it is an unconventional route for landing a job. Therefore, response times are not exact and the application process may not be predefined. Furthermore, not all employers may have systems in place, or be willing to interview or hire you through your following this route.
Nonetheless, it’s still worth giving it a try.
20 Companies Hiring Now From Referrals
To make this process easier, a study was recently conducted by Switch On Business to identify which of the top U.S. companies prefer to hire based on internal referrals. To arrive at their final top 20 results, they analysed Glassdoor data for 1,493 employers to retrieve the percentage of interviewees citing “employee referral” as their reason for securing an interview and job offer.
Based on this information, these 20 companies were ranked as being most likely to hire a referred candidate:
- Salesforce
- Nutanix
- ZoomInfo
- Cadence Design Systems
- Devon Energy
- Booz Allen Hamilton Holding
- Salem Media Group
- Splunk
- Northern Trust
- Activision Blizzard
- HubSpot
- DocuSign
- Fluor
- VMware
- Zscaler
- Akamai
- Coinbase
- Fortinet
- Broadcom
It’s worth noting that a significant proportion of referrals being used as the basis of hiring, for this top 20 list, are within the tech industry, with many software companies claiming the top spot.
For example, cloud computing giant Salesforce hired more than 41% of its employees through referrals—which is more than any other U.S. company according to the analysis. With Nutani, another software company, 30% of its job offers were through employee-referred candidates, while ZoomInfo’s job offers through employee referrals fell just shy of this figure at 29.6%.
These 20 companies—from media, to consulting, to software—are excellent examples of how effective employee referrals can be towards landing a new job. If you leverage the power of your network and are willing to think outside the box, you’ll find yourself much closer to securing your dream role than you initially imagined.