This article explains the how Eightfold referrals work. This article is directed toward current users of the Referrals solution within the Eightfold Talent Acquisition product.

For advanced technical information, read Referrals configuration guide.

Definitions

• Ownership: The property conferred on the employee who referred the candidate; different configurations set the ownership rules, as described in this article.
• Duplicate referral: A referral made by more than one employee on the same candidate during the period of candidate “ownership” as described in this article.
• Generic referral: A referral made when a referring employee does not upload a referred candidate’s resume for a specific position.
• Referred application: Each application of a referred candidate to a specific position; appears as an individual row in the My Referrals Dashboard table.
• Referring employee: The employee who refers a candidate for a position.
• Referred candidate: The candidate referred by the referring employee .

Referral flow

This section describes the referral process that starts at the referral page, which starts at https://COMPANY-NAME.eightfold.ai/refer/.

1. A referring employee uploads the resume of a referred candidate on the referral page.
   • For some positions, the referral portal can also be set up to ask the referring employee additional questions to gain more details about the referred candidate.
   • Eightfold also checks if generic referrals are allowed.
2. The employee agrees to the Data Privacy Policy.
3. Eightfold then saves the uploaded resume in the Eightfold database and parses the resume.
   • If there is an existing profile for the referred candidate, then the resume is uploaded to the candidate’s profile.
   • If there is not an existing profile for the referred candidate, then a new profile is created for the candidate and the resume is added to the profile.
4. Eightfold checks whether your company has allowed for duplicate referrals to be flagged. If allowed, then Eightfold checks for duplicate referrals. If the referral is a duplicate referral, customers can set a configuration that specifies Eightfold to sends a referral duplicate email to the referring employee.
5. Once a referred candidate’s profile is identified and updated, or created, Eightfold checks for positions that are relevant for the profile and recommends the positions to the referring employee for referral of the candidate.

Types of referrals

This section describes the different types and sources of referrals.

Generic referrals

A generic referral is when a referring employee doesn’t upload a referred candidate’s resume for any specific position.

The referring employee can track the status of a generic referral just like a position-specific referral, and if a relevant position opens in the future, the employee can then submit the referred candidate’s resume to the position. A recruiter can also find and advance the candidate. In both scenarios, a credit will be given to the referring employee. Within a time window specified by your company, the first generic referral is considered and all later referrals are ignored.

Employee referrals with a position

When a referring employee uploads a referred candidate’s resume for a specific position, Eightfold creates an application for the position and does attribution.

If configured by your company, Eightfold pushes the application to its mapped ATS. Your company can also configure the ability for Eightfold to send a confirmation email to the referring employee and the referred candidate respectively.

Social referrals

Each employee has a unique personalized URL that can be shared with potential referral candidates. When the candidate opens the link, they can fill the details and apply to the position. This way, an employee can generate one link and share it with multiple candidates without needing to enter their details. If a candidate applies through that URL, the application will be counted as a referral by the employee.

The personalized URL can be found on the My Referrals page.

Duplicate referrals

A duplicate referral is when the same candidate is referred more than once by different employees. Whether or not this is allowed is specified by your company. If you are a customer admin, to learn more about duplicate referrals, read Duplicate referrals logic.

My Referrals dashboard

Employees can track all of their referrals by visiting their My Referrals page.

If a user has purchased the Eightfold Career Hub product, they can also access their My Referrals Dashboard through Career Hub. From the Career Hub home page, click the My Activity drop-down menu at the top of the page, and then My Referrals. On this page employees can see several pieces of information about each referral: referral status, the position for which each referred candidate is referred, referral date, and the last update date.

Figure 2. My Referrals page

The My Referrals Dashboard shows ATS referrals and three types of local referrals:

1. ATS Referrals: All referrals from the ATS
2. Local Referrals: Referrals that have not yet been reflected in the ATS for the following reasons:
   1. Status is “Submitting“: Referrals that are pending and have not been applied to the ATS
   2. Status is “Submitted“: Candidate has been referred by an employee on the Eightfold platform, but the data hasn’t synced to the ATS yet
   3. Status is “ATS error message“: Referral has applied, but an error was encountered

Status column

The Status column displays the current stage of each referred application. When an employee refers a candidate, Eightfold writes that application data to the corresponding ATS of the company that is hiring. In some cases when the ATS rejects the application or data is still syncing with the ATS, a status of “Failed” or “Submitting” appears.

Users can personalize the Status column in a couple ways:

• Users can hide certain stages from the referring employee. The last application stage that is not hidden using is displayed to the employee.
• Users can also override the Status column values to display something more meaningful to the user. There are two My Referrals pages, and changing the Status column displays is different for each page:
  • My Referrals via Career Hub (/careerhub/myreferrals)
  • My Referrals via TA (/myreferrals), for customers who don’t have Career Hub

The “Duplicate referral” label is visible in the Status column for a referral if the following conditions are met:

• The candidate has multiple applications
• This application is the later one
• Duplicate referrals are allowed