NEW YORK (PRWEB) SEPTEMBER 24, 2019
FirmPlay, a new startup making it faster and easier for companies to hire the best people in their employees’ networks, announced today their NYC early access launch. While over 60% of companies have a formal employee referral program, almost 45% of employees don’t participate, mostly because the process of submitting referrals is too onerous for employees.
Today, our network connections are almost fully catalogued online across various networks (e.g. social media, email and phone contacts, etc.), yet corporate recruiters have almost zero visibility into this talent pool. This is why most companies take a very low-tech approach to soliciting employee referrals — usually in the form of company-wide announcements asking employees to refer someone or share jobs on social media.
While this approach can yield some results, it’s onerous for employees, referrals trickle in slowly (if at all), they’re often not the most qualified and usually come from just a small subset of hyper-engaged employees.
FirmPlay reimagines the referral process by allowing employees to easily sync their contacts from various online networks (e.g. LinkedIn, email, etc.) with the software, which are then instantly enriched with work history, skills, location and social data. The software can suggest referrals for employees to submit for the company’s jobs and/or employers can proactively search the platform to instantly match people with jobs. The tool also provides a seamless workflow for recruiters to leverage their connected employees for warm introductions via email. While clearly a win for employers, more quality referrals also means more cash in employees’ pockets, with referral bonuses often paying upwards of $500 per hire.
Jason Rivas, co-founder of FirmPlay, says, “consumer apps have been successfully leveraging similar technology to tap into our networks for a long time. On my phone right now, I have at least 10 apps where I’ve connected my networks. Take the fitness app ClassPass for example, where I can connect my Facebook account to find friends to invite to join the app and earn a discount if they join. Compared to these types of consumer apps, referrals are an even more compelling use case for connecting your networks, because you’re not only potentially putting money in your own pocket, but you could also be helping your friends find their dream jobs. Yet, there’s no comparable consumer-like solution to make the employee referral process faster, easier and more effective.”
The company has been developing the core technology in stealth mode for the past 6 months alongside a small group of alpha customers. They are now selectively opening up the tool to NYC-area companies and partnering closely with them to gain the critical feedback needed to improve the product. FirmPlay’s go-to-market approach is also novel among recruiting technology startups in that their pricing is transparent and anyone who’s hiring can sign up and try the software for free with up to 20 employees. Paid plans for over 20 employees are billed monthly per employee with no annual contract obligations.
“We’re big fans of what’s often called product led growth. We want to knock down the barriers for recruiters to experiment with innovative products,” noted Jason Rivas. “For too long, new HR technology has been hidden behind demo request forms, sales pitches disguised as product demos, opaque pricing and long-term contracts. Today, recruiting innovation starts in small corners of the enterprise and quickly spreads. We want to give these internal innovators the power to easily evaluate new products and bring innovation to their organizations with as little friction as possible.”
About FirmPlay
FirmPlay’s employee referral acceleration platform makes sourcing quality employee referrals quick and easy. No more sitting around and waiting for employees to submit referrals. FirmPlay’s technology instantly creates an on-demand referral talent pool from employees’ contacts, complete with work history, skills, social profiles and contact information. Powerful search filters help quickly surface the best-fit referral candidates for any job, any time.
