More referral recruiting with "Know-Who"

Last week I wrote about Blue Chip Expert.  It works by encouraging you to invite all the people you know to register on the site,  then you make money as you refer people for jobs (that they get) or your contacts refer people for jobs.  Referal recruiting meets MLM. 

Now I've been sent some information about Know-who.   The site allows: "job-hunters, employers and even networkers the opportunity to not only monetise their social and business contacts but also use these same contacts to actively help them find jobs and staff as well."

The referal fee structure is less clear than with sites like Blue Chip Expert, Zubka or Jobtonic. On the home page of Know-who it says "earn £50 to £100 for anyone who gets a job through the site, if you invited them first". However, it also shows rewards of up to £2100.

I'm feeling all referal-recruiting-social-networked-out so I won't go into any more detail.  If you want to know more visit their site or you could read this other (more complimentary) review on a blog.  However, I will say if you want to make money from your friends and colleagues - it's one for your bookmarks.

Actually, I am going to give them a little further PR as they published quite an interesting survey about what job seekers think of recruiters:

"The survey, which saw recruitment agents topped only by politicians (12 percent) and estate agents (25 percent) as the least credible professions, found that only 32 percent of Britons considered recruitment consultants to be trustworthy."

So where did used-car-salesmen rank on this?  Surely not more trustworthy than recruiters!

Comments

[Andy Headworth]

Louise,

Firstly I am surprised that the figure is as high as 32%!!!

It does appear that you have become the focal point of every social referring site that ever exists! Like social networking sites, it seems that there are some serious bandwagons being jumped on at the moment!! I think you raised it a few weeks ago, but there comes a point where credibility with 'our network' must be maintained. How can we all do that by sending out so many invites to join all these schemes? It does make you wonder how long some of these schemes will last and therefore is it worth joining them anyway?

Regards
Andy

[Daniel Halstead (Co-Founder Know Who).]

Hi Louise

Thanks for covering our launch via your blog.

As you probably know, our site is in live beta at the moment. We’re still making a few final touches and you’ve spotted one that we haven’t made yet – the way we display our fee structure so that it’s easy to reference.

At the moment it’s in the terms, but not visible during usual site navigation so we’ll be bringing it to the forefront very soon. We’re actually really pleased with how simple the fee structure is to calculate and would like everyone to know about it...

For clarity it’s free to advertise on know who, we only charge if we make a successful introduction. Our charge to clients is 5% of starting salary and we split our fee out as below:

• 70% to the person who makes the successful recommendation
• 10% to the candidate as a little welcome present when they get a new job
• 2.5% to each of the users first that invited the successful candidate and the hiring client.
• This means that up to 85% of our fee goes back to the community members that helped to make the introduction, giving great value for all of our users.

Also, sorry to hear that you’re feeling referral-recruiting-social-networked-out…

We will be launching some exciting new products this year and I’ll add to my list of criteria that new products have to be exciting enough to get you a little more interested in our sector again!

Best regards

Daniel

[Richard]

Hi Louise,

I think the know-who.com idea sounds great and one which could better restore peoples trust in the recruitment industry. I do think however that there has got to be a difference set between agencies who deal with top end jobs and ones that deal with the rest. Where I agree completely trusting some consultants would not be the opinion of most, top end recruitment agencies rely heavily on their client reputation and referral and so have to have the trust of their candidates.

Richard

http://www.JumpToJobs.co.uk/blog

[Louise Triance]

@ Daniel, Thanks for adding your comments and clarifying the situation around referral fees. I look forward to receiving thrilling pr from you in future!

@ Richard, Thanks too for your comments.

Don't get me wrong I love the concept of referral recruitment!

[princy]

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