The New $30,000 Side Hustle: Making Job Referrals for Strangers
(Bloomberg) -- Copy, paste, refer. Over 18 months, that’s the simple process that helped one enterprising tech worker recommend more than a thousand job candidates to his employer. His efforts produced more than half a dozen successful hires for the company and roughly $30,000 in employee referral bonuses for him. No one seemed to mind, or even realize, that nearly every person he endorsed was a complete stranger.
While referrals are typically reserved for known quantities — former colleagues, or at least someone with a mutual acquaintance who can vouch for them — there’s a burgeoning underground market connecting job seekers to anonymous company insiders willing to help them get a foot in the door.
In a job market where searches for work are lengthening and it can seem like resumes are being thrown into a black hole, weary applicants are looking for any edge they can get. Having a referral is no guarantee of a job offer, but it can substantially improve the odds. According to hiring platform Greenhouse, while external applicants have a 1 in 200 chance of being hired, those with referrals have a 1 in 25 chance. (Internal applicants — the ultimate known quantity — have a 1 in 5 chance of getting hired, though they typically only make up some 0.1% of candidates, according to Greenhouse.)
On Blind, a free app used by some 12 million tech workers to anonymously discuss their employers, earnest job seekers post dozens of times a day on a forum for jobs and referrals asking about specific roles or companies. The employees — who are identified only by the company they work for, verified at signup via a valid work email address — will comment on the posts if they’re interested in helping, and typically instruct the requester to directly message them to sew up the logistics.
