Submitting referrals

Referral programs are an effective way to leverage the talent networks of your organization's employees in order to fill your candidate pipeline. Referred candidates tend to move through the pipeline faster than passive candidates, at a lower cost your talent acquisition organization. Any member of your organization can submit referrals via Lever. Readers of this article will learn about:

• How referrals work
• Types of referrals
• Submitting direct referrals via Lever
• Submitting direct referrals via the Lever Chrome extension
• Generating social referral links
• Tracking the status of your referred candidates

To learn how to set up the referral form for your Lever environment, refer to our help article on configuring and using forms.

How referrals works

In Lever, referred candidates are those that have had opportunities added to your pipeline as a result of a direct or indirect submission from your organization's employees. Opportunities associated with referred candidates are added to the 'New Applicant' stage in the Applicant section of the pipeline. The origin and source(s) attributed to opportunities associated with referred candidates are dictated by the type of referral (see below). Employees can monitor the status of their referrals directly in Lever, as their candidates move through the recruitment process.

Types of referrals

There are two types of referrals in Lever: direct referrals and social referrals.

Direct referrals
These are referrals generated as a result of an employee's submission to your organization's referral form. In the following sections of this article, you will find instructions on how to submit direct referrals. Opportunities generated via direct referral are given an origin of 'Referral' and the source tag 'Referred.'

Social referrals
These referrals are generated as result of a candidate applying to a job posting via a social referral link shared by one of your organization's employees. In a later section of this article, you will find instructions on how to generate social referral links. Opportunities generated via social referral links are given an origin of 'Applied' and the source tag 'Social referral.' 

Submitting direct referrals via Lever

To submit a direct referral via Lever:

• Navigate to the Interviews page
  
  • Note: If you have an access role of Interviewer in Lever, you do not need to go through the step of navigating to the Interviews page, because you will already be defaulted to that page when you arrive at hire.lever.co.

• Click the + Refer Candidate button

• If you have the resume of the candidate that you are referring, start by attaching it to the referral form
  • Lever will parse the information from the resume and auto-populate the corresponding fields on the referral form.

• Fill out the remaining fields on the referral form
  • Depending on how your Lever environment's referral form has been configured, some fields may be required while others are optional. In all cases, you must provide an email address for the candidate that you are referring.
• At the bottom of the referral form, select a minimum of one job posting for which you to refer the candidate
  • You can refer a candidate for a maximum of three job postings in a single referral. Separate opportunities will be created for each posting.
  • It is not possible to refer candidates for postings that have only been published internally. For more on this topic, refer to our help article on job posting publication.

• Click the Submit Referral button

Submitting direct referrals via the Lever Chrome extension

Lever's Chrome extension allows users with any level of access to add candidates from sites such as LinkedIn, GitHub, and AngelList to your Lever pipeline. To submit a direct referral via the Lever Chrome extension:

• Navigate to the profile of a candidate that you wish to refer
  
  • For a list of sites on which the Chrome extension can be used, refer to our Chrome extension help article.
• Open the Chrome extension in your browser window
• Select the 'Referral' checkbox under the name field; the fields from your Lever environment's referral form will appear in the extension
  • Note: This step only applies to users with Super Admin, Admin, Team Member, and Limited Team Member access. Users with Interviewer level access will see the referral form fields when they open the Chrome extension.

• Fill out the referral form fields in the extension
  • Depending on how your Lever environment's referral form has been configured, some fields may be required while others are optional. In all cases, you must provide an email address for the candidate that you are referring.
  • Tip: If you are making a referral using a candidate's LinkedIn profile, you can save their profile as a PDF and drag it into the extension. Lever will parse the information on the profile and auto-populate any applicable fields. For full details, refer to our help article on how to save a LinkedIn profile as PDF.
• At the bottom of the referral form, select a minimum of one job posting for which you to refer the candidate
  • You can refer a candidate for a maximum of three job postings in a single referral. Separate opportunities will be created for each posting.
  • It is not possible to refer candidates for postings that have only been published internally. For more on this topic, refer to our help article on job posting publication.
• Click the Create Referral button

Generating social referral links

To generate a social referral link:

• Navigate to the Interviews page
  
  • Note: This step only applies to users with Super Admin, Admin, Team Member, and Limited Team Member access. When users with Interviewer level access navigate to Lever, they only see the Interviews page.
• Select the 'Social Referrals' tab and click the Get Referral Link button

• Open the 'Link to' menu and select the posting for which you wish to generate the referral link
  • Only externally published postings will be available for selection. For more on this topic, refer to our help article on job posting publication.
• Copy the unique URL and paste it to social media sites in order to share with your network
  • Click the buttons below the 'Copy link' field to share the link directly to Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn. Note, selecting any of these options will require you to log in to the respective social media site.

Tracking the status of your referred candidates

To monitor the progress of your referred candidates as they move through the recruitment process:

• Navigate to the Interviews page
  
  • Note: This step only applies to users with Super Admin, Admin, Team Member, and Limited Team Member access. When users with Interviewer level access navigate to Lever, they only see the Interviews page.
• To view the status of candidates that you have directly referred, select the 'My Referrals' tab
• To view the status of candidates that have applied via your social referral links, select the 'Social Referral' tab

The referral lists include candidates' names, the stage of their referred opportunity, the associated posting, the date of last interaction, and the opportunity owner.