Setting up a referral form and tracking referred candidates

How referrals works

In Lever, referred opportunities are 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 referred opportunities are dictated by the type of referral listed below. Employees can also 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. Opportunities generated via direct referral are given an origin of 'Referral' and the source tag 'Referred.' You can submit direct referrals in-app, or by using the Lever Chrome extension. 

Social referrals
Social 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. Opportunities generated via social referral links are given an origin of 'Applied' and the source tag 'Social referral.' 

Customizing your referral form

The system referral form is preconfigured with a list of default fields. To customize your referral form:

• Navigate to Settings > Forms and select 'Referral' under the 'System Forms' group header.
• You will see two types of questions - 'Default questions' and 'Custom questions':
  • 'Default questions' are questions that cannot be edited or reordered. You can choose whether questions are required or optional, with the exception of email because it’s used for blocking duplicate referrals.
  • 'Custom questions' will appear on the referral form under a section titled 'Your recommendation'. These are questions your team can customize based on your unique needs and the necessary information you're hoping to capture as employees submit their referrals.
• For more information on setting up the referral form for your Lever environment, refer to our help article on configuring and using forms.

You can prevent candidates from being referred to the same job posting multiple times. If referrers attempt to select a job postings for a candidate who has already been submitted for the same job, they will see an error message. To block repeat referrals:

• Navigate to Settings > Forms > Referral.
• Turn on the 'Block repeat referrals' toggle.

• Referrers will now see an error message during the referral process.

Tracking referred opportunities

Job posting owners can configure automated emails when new referral opportunities are added to the job postings they own under Settings > My account. For more information, refer to our help article on configuring personal account settings. 

When an opportunity is created in Lever via the referral form, The referrer will be listed on the referred candidate's opportunity. The referrer is automatically attributed to the account of the user who submitted the referral. The referral form will be added to the opportunity profile in the candidate history and in the 'Forms' tab. 

When an applicant applies via a social referral link, a candidate opportunity will be created in Lever along with an indication that the opportunity applied 'Via social referral ink created by [the creator of the referral link].' The source will indicate the platform the link was shared to - Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn.

Please note that if a user clicks 'Copy' when generating a social referral link, then the source will be listed as ‘Job Site’ (i.e. your Lever job site) when a candidate applies. Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn will be reflected as a source on the opportunity if the link was copied and shared to the site using the links built into the social referral link editor. For more information on generating social referral links, please refer to our help article on submitting referrals. 

Configuring automated updates

You can configure email updates for referral submissions and progressions. Refer to our help article on building referral workflows.

Reporting on referrals

If you are running a referral incentive program at your organization, use the 'Referrals' data export to keep track of all referrals submitted through Lever that resulted in a hire so you know which employees to compensate.

To access the Referrals export:

• Navigate to Visual Insights via the platform header.
• Click the Exports icon (⇩) in the left-side navigation and select Referrals from the export menu.
• For more information on exporting Referrals data and the fields included, please refer to our help article on Visual Insights exports.