Understanding How Referrals are Submitted

The two referral methods are:

  • The applicant identifies the referring employee when submitting an application.

    • Applicants can submit referral information in the Referrals section of the online job application.

    • Recruiters who manually add applications to the system can enter referral source information on the Application Details Page.

  • The employee initiates the referral using the Refer a Friend option in Candidate Gateway.

    See Entering Referrals.

Applicant-Provided Referral Information

When applicants use Candidate Gateway to apply for jobs, they use the Referrals section of the application to indicate how they learned about the job. (The Template Sections Page in the resume template controls whether the Referrals section is included in the application.)

When the recruitment source that the applicant selects in the How did you learn of the job? field is a recruitment source with source type Employee, the Referrals section displays the Referral Name and Email Address fields to collect additional information about the employee referral. The Member of Your Family check box also appears, as this information can be relevant to award processing for an employee referral program.

When the application is submitted, the system sends a notification to the referral email address provided by the applicant. The notification requests confirmation of the referral. It includes a link to the Confirm Referral - Access page, and provides a referral ID (called the “track ID”) and a password that the employee uses to access the referral to confirm it. The email also contains a link to the Review Referral page, where the employee can track the status of the referral after confirming it.

An employee's failure to confirm the referral does not affect the recruitment process for the applicant. However, if the employee does not confirm an applicant-provided referral, the employee is not eligible to receive award payments for the referral.

See Confirming Referrals.

Employee-Provided Referrals

When employees refer a friend through employee self-service, the system creates an active applicant record for the friend, sets the applicant's disposition to Draft, and sets the referral source to employee. The application remains in Draft status until the applicant accesses it and submits it. The employee who is referring the applicant cannot submit the application on behalf of the applicant.

When the employee submits the referral, the system sends an email to the friend using the email address that the employee provided. The email includes a link that enables the friend to access Candidate Gateway. When the applicant registers or signs in after using that link, the Candidate Gateway account is associated with the draft application that the referral process created. The applicant can review the job posting and, if interested, complete and submit the application.

The employee who submitted the original referral is permanently recognized as the referring employee for the application that the referral process created. If the online application includes the Referrals section, the “How did you learn of the job” field is set to show that this is an employee referral, the employee’s name and email address are entered in the appropriate fields, and these fields are read-only.

The referring employee receives a confirmation email when the applicant submits the application. Employees can review the eligibility and payment status of the referrals that they submit using the Review Referral Page.

See Entering Referrals.