What is network recruiting?

Network recruiting helps you tap into the power of connection to drive your recruiting and hiring.

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Why network recruiting?

Inbound and outbound recruiting have unlocked amazing growth in the past — but they can also be labor intensive and prioritize quantity over quality. Network recruiting focuses on building fruitful relationships rather than simply "filling the funnel."

Network recruiting is a unique approach to recruiting. It’s based on curated referrals from a collective company network of connections, ensuring businesses only hire talent best suited for their requirements. It’s much more efficient than traditional inbound and outbound recruiting, saving an organizations tons of time and effort to go through countless candidate profiles.

However, for the entire process to be effective, you need to use the right recruiting platform. That’s where The Swarm comes in, so you can leverage the connections of your team, investors, and advisors to find top talent for your startup.

How does network recruiting work?

Network recruiting can be used by any company looking to increase its competitive advantage in hiring. It is particularly helpful for startups who are looking for smart ways to hire and grow quickly, tapping into their ecosystem to build a trusted talent pipeline faster than they might if they used inbound or outbound recruiting.

In this suggested flow, we recommend startups spend 80% of their time working through their networks vs. focusing on inbound or outbound recruiting.

What are the benefits of network recruiting?

Cost & productivity savings

A major benefit of network recruiting is that it can be done with less internal and external resources. Say goodbye to sourcing jams, sourceathons, and asking your team, investors, and advisors for referrals. Network recruiting also gets rid of the need for job board postings and external sourcing firms.As a result, the estimated cost-per-hire in network recruiting is $300, rather than the $10k to $25k seen with traditional recruiting methods.

Faster time-to-hire

Leveraging Network recruiting internally means less time briefing agencies, and less back and forth internally. Time-savings compound and lead to a significantly faster time-to-hire. The screening phase of recruiting is also accelerated as vetting and screening candidates can be done in batches in just a few clicks.

Higher-quality candidates

Your employees, investors, and advisors know your company best. They are familiar with its vision and goals. They know the requirements of an ideal candidate and what kind of person would make a great fit for the company’s culture. Referrals are thus 85x more likely to be hired, and referred employees have a higher retention and lower turnover rate than other candidates.

Candidate engagement

Landing a qualified candidate has never been tougher than it is in today's market — making it crucial for you to build strong connections with candidates.

Network recruiting allows you to naturally cultivate new relationships based on trust and familiarity, which can facilitate engagement throughout the hiring process.

Talent pipeline

With network recruiting, you're not only building your company today — you're also growing your talent pool for tomorrow. As your company network grows, so does your future talent pipeline.

Employee engagement

When they contribute their connections, your employees and company stakeholders know they’re a tangible part of your company recruiting and growth. As such, Network recruiting leads to higher employee engagement and retention overall. With it, contributors are de facto an active part of your company building process.

What are common misconceptions
about network recruiting?

Network recruiting means we won’t need recruiters anymore.

A major benefit of network recruiting is that it can be done with less internal and external resources. Say goodbye to sourcing jams, sourceathons, and asking your team, investors, and advisors for referrals. Network recruiting also gets rid of the need for job board postings and external sourcing firms.

As a result, the estimated cost-per-hire in network recruiting is $300, rather than the $10k to $25k seen with traditional recruiting methods.

Network recruiting is replacing inbound and outbound recruiting

Inbound and outbound recruiting are still valid recruiting methods! Inbound can be a powerful tool for larger firms to attract a lot of candidates when the company needs to hire quickly. Outbound recruiting can still be a powerful tool to use when you're seeking specific skills that aren't well represented in your company's network. It’s also a way to look outside of a company network to seek very specialized talent, hopefully bringing them in and then benefiting from their own networks in the context of network recruiting.

Network recruiting creates diversity debt and problems down the road.

This is perhaps the most common misconception about network recruiting. Network recruiting only leads to a more homogenous workforce if Diversity, Equity & Inclusion haven’t been considered early on in the recruiting process. Network recruiting will emphasize your company's DEI Practices — either positively or negatively — depending on the foundation you've built.

By hiring candidates from the network of your network, you’re directly reflecting the diversity of your network. It is thus essential to cultivate diverse investors, advisors, and employees in order to benefit from the exponential network effect of network recruiting.

When should you invest in network recruiting?

If you’re a startup, the earlier, the better. At any stage of your growth, if you’re having trouble hitting hiring goals or scaling the recruiting efforts you’ve put in place, it’s time to invest in Network recruiting. Here are some good questions to ask yourself when deciding if network recruiting is the right move for your organization.

Are you looking to hire in the coming months?
Is reducing cost per hire a priority?
Is your average time-to-hire above the benchmark for companies in your space?
Do you heavily rely on outside assistance (RPOs or agencies) to fill your reqs?