When An Employee Recommends Someone To Be Hired

Ellen, an employee of yours, has been with you for several years. She’s hard-working, loyal and you trust her judgment.

Your receptionist is leaving and you need to get her replaced.

Ellen comes to you one day and says, “Mr. Jones, my friend, Julie, I believe she would be perfect for the receptionist position.”

You of course say, “That’s great, Ellen. Why don’t you tell me a bit about her.”

Ellen does.

You find out if Julie knows that Ellen is recommending her, and you get Julie’s contact info.

Now what?

The receptionist is a very important position. This person handles incoming communications on the phone and greets those coming in person.

This is often the first contact point someone will have with your company.

Do you treat Julie in a different manner than you would any other candidate for the receptionist position?

Do you have her go through the entire hiring process, fill out all the forms, have her take all of the pre-employment tests and sit through the thorough one-on-one hiring interview?

Do you do the due diligence and verify Julie’s résumé?

Or can you short-cut a good deal of this process because you trust Ellen to refer you someone who will be a superb receptionist?

Perhaps you’re concerned that you might offend Ellen if you put Julie through the entire hiring process.

You could go either way on this, but I might as well give you my two cents.

I would put Julie through the entire hiring process. All of it.

And I would say this to Ellen, “Ellen, thank you very much for referring your friend Julie to us. I do want you to know that I’ll want her do all of the paper work, testing and interviews that we do with everyone else.”

The likelihood is very high that Ellen will respond, “Oh absolutely. That makes total sense.”

So that’s out in the open and off you go to see if Julie is the right person for your receptionist position.

You don’t want to hire Ellen and then have to let her go or she scoots off in a few weeks. So maybe you’re extra thorough in your hiring steps with her. Can’t hurt.