SQLink Group’s Referral Program: gotfriends? or notfriends?

One of the most interesting stories of the Israeli job market of 2007 is the increasing popularity of SQLink Group‘s gotfriends? refer-a-friend recruitment service. With new types of jobs being added, the program continues to expand but is it growing like a flower or a weed?

More Jobs Added

Last month I told you about the addition of finance-oriented positions to the database of job openings that gotfriends? is trying to fill, as announced on the official gotfriends? blog (Hebrew). Now the gotfriends? team is going further and has added executive-level positions (Hebrew) and not just for hitech companies either. They've also come to an arrangement with Microsoft in becoming “one of the exclusive partners” to help staff a new Israel R&D Center. Like with the finance jobs, the referral payouts seem to be fixed at NIS 2500 across the board for these new recruits. Only recently has Microsoft begun giving refer-a-friend bonuses internally (they didn't in the past) of approximately US$1000, maybe the gotfriends? bonus will match that in the future.

Growing Pains Continue

gotfriends? is clearly having success bringing in new job sources to their program but the same signs of being overwhelmed persist. Delays in responding to CV applications are still rampant according to participants in the gotfriends? forum. Looking at the leader board, I find it suspicious that 8 of the top 10 “all-stars” (their nickname, not mine) have each submitted over 1000 CVs (and that two of them are currently tied at exactly 3134 submissions…?) but when you look closer, #1 is actually a popular Hebrew jobsite whose homepage highlights a link to the gotfriends? site. Perhaps some of the other all-stars are actually manpower or recruiting agencies forwarding job seekers' CVs into the program or dishonest people copying resumes off the Internet. Curious about the latter, I asked SQLink Group VP Business Development and gotfriends? blogger Elad Daniel whether such CV scraping was a concern. Although he responded to my other queries, that one unfortunately went unanswered.

A Good Deal

Submitter suspicions and slow reactions aside, the program still has great potential in motivating people to find jobs for friends and acquaintances, something we can only appreciate as the kinks are ironed out. The JobMob-gotfriends? charity-tied referral offer is still open, so if you're in one of the target industries, help yourself and your friends find work while making some money and JobMob will donate to a worthy cause.

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