Spotlight On Recruiting – Spring 2020
Win-Win-Winning at Recruiting
The strong state of employment in our economy ironically presents a challenge to TMB in our continuous quest to add to our team the talent we need to support our growth. With Navy-support professionals generally gainfully employed and not actively seeking new positions via conventional channels such as internet-based job boards and job fairs, TMB needs to use all the other resources available — conventional and not — to identify and connect with those whom we would like to consider for hire to our team.
Amongst the most effective resources for identifying professionals who are strong candidates for employment at TMB are our current team members. Who better to connect with those professionals whose talents and goals align well with TMB’s mission and culture than those who currently carry out its mission and form its culture?
All the candidate sourcing and screening technology in the world is no substitute for the good judgment of TMB’s employees. When a current employee recommends a candidate for hire, the company can be reasonably confident that the candidate has some value to offer should they become a member of our team. That is not to say that the referring employee needs to sign off on the referred person’s ability to qualify for a position and perform up to TMB’s standards to establish that confidence on the part of the company, and that is completely okay; rather, by referring someone and providing the appropriate contextual background (e.g., “I know this person only from commuting together, so I can’t vouch for their work quality, but I know they’re a professional, positive person”) the current employee provides TMB’s hiring team (leadership, managers, and the recruiter) a valuable connection and head start in assessing a candidate’s fit for our opportunities. The company can be assured based on the current employee’s knowledge of what it takes to serve our customers successfully that the candidate has potential to align well with TMB’s mission and culture.
Connecting with a potentially well-qualified candidate via an employee referral clearly has value for TMB, and TMB employees also have a lot to gain by putting in the time and effort to make referrals. Firstly, recommending someone for hire represents an opportunity potentially to “pick your own teammates.” If you know someone in our industry is a productive professional with whom you work well, why not seek the chance to bring them aboard your own team? A study by the Journal of Vocational Behavior concluded that agreeable professional relationships between coworkers correlates directly with job satisfaction and “life satisfaction.” Helping to build a team of people with whom you know you work well is a direct path to achieve this benefit.
TMB’s generous Referral Bonus Program offers another significant benefit to employees who refer candidates. Any employee below the program manager or project manager level is eligible for a $1,000 pre-tax referral bonus if the person whom they refer is hired successfully. This bonus program demonstrates the company’s recognition that hiring based on employee referrals results is a strategy worthy of investment that leads to improved performance by the company and for which employees who participate should receive a piece of the resultant financial gain. The Referral Bonus Program affirms: “Our company has always grown through referrals since those on-board understand our corporate culture and what it takes to be successful at TMB.”
When TMB employees take the opportunity to refer candidates whose professional background aligns well with TMB’s mission and culture, the result is a win-win-win situation for TMB, the newly hired employee, and the referring employee. The company gains a valuable new employee, the newly hired employee gains an opportunity at a respected, growing company, and the referring employee gains a teammate with whom they have a positive, familiar relationship from Day 1 as well as the Referral Bonus in their paycheck.
On a related note: TMB recently implemented a comprehensive new applicant tracking system, iCIMS, which helps to ensure that referrals — and all candidates — progress smoothly through the recruiting process. Candidates may create an iCIMS profile and apply directly to current opportunities via TMB’s Career Portal, or TMB’s recruiter may link candidates to positions for which they are well-qualified within iCIMS, as will often be the case for referred candidates. You can direct your referrals to ICIMS at https://careers-tmbhq.icims.com/.
Employees need to submit candidate referrals for review to resumes@tmbhq.com and they should feel free to discuss their referrals with me (202-735-2488, james.hilson@tmbhq.com).
~ Jim Hilson
