The downturn is a difficult time for job-seekers who face still competition as well as barriers to entry caused by companies rationalising their workforce and recruitment costs. Meanwhile, recruiting the right person for a job vacancy without incurring a large fee can be challenging. With these factors in mind, a new type of recruitment referral website, MyInternalReferral.com ( http://www.myinternalreferral.com ), is launching to put job-seekers in direct contact with existing employees across different industries for internal referrals and networking.
A free service designed for head-hunters and recent graduates as well as job-seekers, MyInternalReferral.com offers a different approach to recruitment agencies. It provides a social network where those seeking work can interact with people who are already working in their chosen sector, and who may be seeking fresh personnel and skills.
By using MyInternalReferral.com to find skilled individuals, existing employees can benefit from bounty referral schemes run by their company - for example, if they source the right person for a job and save their employer thousands of pounds in recruitment agency fees, they are likely to be rewarded. Employees can also enjoy professional networking opportunities that help them monitor the competition and decide whether they need to update their professional qualifications and skills. Team leaders can use MyInternalReferral.com to find the best available talent for their team or department.
As for job-seekers, as well as meeting others in their situation for advice and support, they can raise their professional profile and build a network of people who can advise them how to pin down a suitable job, ultimately leading towards a referral. Job-seekers have the chance to be head-hunted by people who work within their chosen industry, not just by recruitment agencies.
MyInternalReferral.com provides attractive profile pages so users can create their professional profile to explain what they're seeking and make a good impression on industry contacts. It has networking capabilities; powerful search utilities for jobs, people and groups; group capabilities so users can create common categories to share their experience, knowledge and contacts; job capabilities for those seeking employment or advertising positions; and filter criteria so they can narrow down results and a find a suitable job or the candidate to fill a vacancy.
MyInternalReferral.com is the brainchild of Paul Koronka, who divides his time between Ashford, Kent and Portsmouth. Trained as a space engineer who now develops ideas in his spare time, Paul decided to set up the venture during a spell of unemployment. During this time, he wanted to speak to people who had been recruited into his preferred industry sector, engineering, and find out how he might follow in their footsteps. However, a suitable existing online resource did not exist so MyInternalReferral.com was born.
Paul comments: The current job market is in a fragile position with employers cutting their recruitment budgets while the unemployment figures remain high. MyInternalReferral.com aims to bring down recruitment costs and breathe life into the job market.
He adds: MyInternalReferral.com is offering a new type of service that stands apart from online agencies and other social and professional networks because it fully integrates professional networking and the job referral market. In essence, it cuts out the middleman and potentially uses every employee as a means of sourcing the right people for internal positions without incurring excess costs.
