[floydian10]

> I work on the principle that the best people usually come in via your network and are highly employable. So, that puts the pressure on to act quickly and decisively when you come across a good reference.

I completely agree. However, at my current job, referring someone for an open position just means throwing their CV in the mix along with everyone else's. There is no way to bypass even a single step in the weeks-long hiring process. And I suspect this is slowly becoming the norm.

[ryandrake]

> However, at my current job, referring someone for an open position just means throwing their CV in the mix along with everyone else's. There is no way to bypass even a single step in the weeks-long hiring process.

I thought this was the case everywhere, except maybe very small companies. In the companies I’ve worked, if a candidate asks for a referral, I can’t do much more than input their resume into our internal tool, and then tell him “It’s job req. 54401, go apply online for it!” There’s no button on the page that I push to indicate “This candidate is a special referral! Bypass the interviews!”

Maybe it’s different higher up. At the VP level it’s more important who you golf with, and who were your buddies from business school, and who you did coke with at one of last year’s private CES parties. I doubt at that level they even have to apply to job reqs. I’m not even sure that a CxO even interviews!

[jillesvangurp]

Luckily, I'm the CTO, so I run the hiring process exactly like this and I wouldn't have it any other way. If somebody comes in via one of our existing people, I talk to them or at least make sure they talk to one of my team leads (i.e. their direct manager if the whole thing goes through).

If somebody approaches me directly with a good pitch (I get some spectacularly bad ones of course), I generally hear them out. We are also planning to put referral rewards in place too when the time comes (too small right now).

The company I run is close to opening its doors for new candidates soon (pending on budget/revenue), so this is not hypothetical. If you are excited about using Kotlin in frontend and backend and are in the Berlin area, feel free to reach out and find out if what I preach lines up with reality.

[isbvhodnvemrwvn]

I feel so too, but I think it's a self-inflicted wound. When we were hiring last year I contacted people who referred candidates and well more than half of them never worked with the person, some admitted to have never been in contact outside of having gone to the same university. The first kind of referral is weak, the other one is purely useless.