This article explains how to set up employee referrals in Personio. With this feature, employees can refer candidates for job vacancies.
Employee referrals can help you find high-quality candidates who fit well with your company culture. Using your employees' networks can also speed up hiring and reduce recruitment costs.
Setting up the feature involves the following steps:
- You need to activate the feature in Settings.
- You need to add it as a homepage shortcut.
After you complete these steps, employees can access the feature from their Personio homepage. We recommend you also enable notifications for employee referrals.
Before you start
Permissions
You need to be the Personio Administrator at your company to complete some of the steps in this article. If you don't have this role, then ask your Administrator for support. If you only have permissions to the Recruiting company settings, you can complete the first part of the process.
Activate employee referrals for your company
By default, the employee referrals feature is deactivated. You need to set it up manually.
To activate employee referrals:
- Go to Settings, then to Recruiting > Employee Referrals.
- In the Employee Referrals section, activate referrals.
- In the Referral Form section, section, write additional information for the referrer. Refer to the example below.
- Create an email template for the automatic confirmation email. Refer to the example below.
- In the Confirmation Email section, select the email template from the drop-down.
- Apply your changes.
The additional information section
Additional information appears in gray text at the bottom of the referral submission form. You define this information when setting up the employee referrals feature. This section contains optional information for the referrer, such as the referral process or data protection policy.
Refer to the example below for what to include in the additional information section. Always protect your candidates' data under both your company’s requirements and those of the EU GDPR. Learn more about data protection options in Recruiting.
Example
Thank you for submitting a referral! Based on the form you have completed above, we collect the candidate’s name, contact information, CV, and any additional details you provided. The data will be used solely for assessing the candidate’s suitability for employment and is retained for six months unless the candidate is hired. Please ensure that you have informed the candidate and obtained their consent.
The confirmation email
You can enable an automated confirmation email for the referring employee. The employee then receives this email when they submit a referral. By sending an automated confirmation email, you can reassure your employees that you've received their submission.
Personio sends the email to the employee's work address stored in their employee profile. Personio appears as the sender, just like with other email notifications.
You need to create a suitable email template for the confirmation email. Refer to the example below for what to include.
Example
Subject line: New candidate referral
Dear {{referrer_name}},
Thank you for your referral! You have successfully referred {{first_name}} {{last_name}} for the position of {{position_name}}.
You may already know that referrals are one of our best sources of new hires. Therefore, your effort is extremely valuable to us.
We will follow up with you as soon as we have any updates.
Kind regards,
Your HR Team
Note that you can't set up an automated confirmation email for the referred candidate. To acknowledge their application, you need to email them manually. When you receive a referral, Personio automatically creates a candidate profile. Go to the Messages tab of the newly created candidate profile and either select an email template or write an email from scratch.
Preview the referral submission form
Tip:
Employees can only make referrals for jobs that have the Published status. You can review your existing jobs via Recruiting > Jobs.
You can preview your referral submission form in Settings via Recruiting > Employee Referrals. Click the button to open the preview.
The referral submission form contains several preset fields. Your employees fill out these fields when making a referral. You can't customize these fields at present.
Add employee referrals as a homepage shortcut
After you complete the steps above, the next step is to add employee referrals as a homepage shortcut. If you're the Personio Administrator at your company, you receive a task in your Inbox. (If someone else is the Personio Administrator, ask them to check their Inbox.) The task is to add a new homepage shortcut for employee referrals. You need to click the task and follow the instructions on the screen.
After you've added it, the submission form appears as a shortcut on every employee’s homepage. You can find the Shortcuts widget on the right side of the homepage.
You receive a notification once the task is marked as completed.
Enable notifications about a new referral
When an employee makes a referral, the members of the hiring team for that job receive an email notification. The notification shows the referrer and the job they submitted the referral for. They can access the candidate profile by clicking on the link in the email.
You need to enable email notifications about new referrals manually:
- The first step is to enable global email notifications. Go to Settings > Company defaults and select the box to enable email notifications.
- You then need to enable email notifications for the relevant hiring team members. You do this via their respective recruiting roles:
▶︎ Go to Settings > Recruiting and then Roles.
▶︎ Select the relevant recruiting role from the list on the left.
▶︎ Under Notifications, click Settings, and select the box next to New referral.
Next steps
After you’ve finished setting up the employee referrals feature, you can:
- Share our article on how to submit a referral with employees at your company.
- Learn how to manage your referrals.