[bastawhiz]

I referred maybe thirty people to Stripe and I think maybe two of them got interviews. Nobody got an offer. At Uber, zero of my referrals were followed up on. At Box, I don't remember any referrals getting followed up on.

I won't say they're worthless, but don't feel bad that you are getting the response that you are. Nearly every place I've been (and lots of places that friends are at) do an abysmal job of following up on referrals and taking them seriously.

That said, you might want to ask a trusted friend to look at your online presence (LinkedIn, GitHub) and offer some critical feedback. It may simply be the case that—despite being well qualified—you don't look that way to recruiters following up on what amounts to a ticket in a queue.

[pardoned_turkey]

It matters why you're making the referral. I've seen far too many referrals made just because a stranger or a social acquittance pinged an employee on LinkedIn. And the employee's thinking is "why not". After all, they're helping a person in need and there might be a referral bonus for them down the line.

I'm a recruiting coordinator or a hiring manager, there's nothing that signals to me that this is a good lead. I assume you're just doing this as a courtesy. I might take a cursory glance, but if the resume doesn't look particularly exciting, onto the pile it goes.

The "how" part matters too. If you're referring a person who you know is amazing at their job, say so, and be specific. "I spent five years working with them at Foobar Industries and they are easily in the top 1% of all engineers at that company" is likely to get attention. "I know this person and I think they may be a fit" isn't.

[lubujackson]

Even if a referral comes from a LinkedIn random request, I would value that as a signal that, at a minimum, the prospect is putting in extra effort beyond most "click to apply" resumes. If you get 200 resumes for a role and lets say 20 come with a referral, why wouldn't you factor that at all?

[neilv]

My take on that, with some background...

When one FAANG was very young, I knew a non-computers researcher who'd heard of the company and wanted to work there. But I figured that the company was still at the stage that they thought they only needed computer people and a few business people. (So I'd expect the non-computer researcher's resume, submitted cold, to be shredded by HR after a 1-second glance.)

So I asked a kindly and famously well-connected professor whether they had a contact there. Something like, so the researcher could explain what value they could bring that the company might not yet realize it needed.

Turns out, the professor had a strong connection to one of the top Poobahs at the company, and arranged an introduction for the researcher.

But later, when I wanted to work at that same company myself, and the company asked for a list of people I knew at the company, there were some, but I didn't feel comfortable doing that. Those contacts didn't have that much familiarity with my work, it felt more like an old-boys network or nepotism rather than a justifiable use of connections, and my software engineering resume should've been strong enough to get it in front of someone who could guess that I'd bring useful things.

Going back to the people who cold-contact strangers on LinkedIn for a referral: I'm not sure that's positive signal. It shows some effort, but it could also be seen as trying to game the system, or to abuse an employee's potential conflict of interest when referral bonuses are involved. Surely there are more unambiguously positive signals to be found in that stack of 200 resumes?

[philosopher1234]

It’s a lot more work to find the signal in a stack of 200 resumes. Gaming the system is a good signal itself. The system has to be overcome to get things done.

[neilv]

I guess it depends what you're looking for. Our field is full of people gaming the system. I'd rather work with people who do the right thing, including creatively.

Remember the Captain America flagpole scene?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGAWgItUboE&t=1m55s

Do you really want to give superpowers to someone who does a "clever" thing, not concerned with collateral damage, and then casually walks away from the problem they created?

[pardoned_turkey]

Interviewing takes time and effort, so it's best to focus your energy on promising leads. A strong endorsement from a person who worked with a candidate is a very promising signal. Without getting into the possible whys, "this stranger contacted me on LinkedIn instead of applying via the normal channels" usually isn't.

Of course, depends on how your pipeline looks like. But most tech job reqs get a lot of applications and passive leads.