Employee Referral
Captures employee referrals and creates them directly as applications in the ATS, removing manual handoffs between employees and recruiting.
- Accepts referrals from employees through their preferred communication channel
- Validates the open role being referred against active postings
- Captures the candidate details needed for a complete submission
- Creates the referral directly in your ATS, ready for recruiter review
- Notifies the right stakeholders so the referral moves forward immediately
- Keeps the referring employee informed as the candidate progresses
What Employee Referral does
Employee Referral turns a referral into an application without a handoff. An employee submits the referral from the channel they already use, and the agent validates the role against active postings, collects the candidate details a complete submission needs, and creates the referral directly in your ATS ready for recruiter review. The right stakeholders are notified so it moves immediately, and the referring employee is kept in the loop as the candidate progresses, rather than wondering whether anything happened.
Who Employee Referral is for
Talent acquisition and HR operations teams running a referral program, and the employees who are supposed to feed it.
Referrals die in transit. An employee sends a name and a CV to a recruiter over chat or email, it gets re-keyed into the ATS later, or it doesn't. The employee never hears back, so they stop referring, and the cheapest hiring channel the company has quietly dries up - not because people don't know anyone, but because the process asks too much and gives nothing back.
How Employee Referral works
An employee submits a referral through their preferred communication channel.
- Accept the referral in-channel
Takes the referral where the employee already is, rather than sending them to a separate form.
- Validate the role
Checks the open role being referred against active postings, so referrals land against something real.
- Capture candidate details
Collects the information a complete submission needs, so recruiters are not chasing gaps afterwards.
- Create the referral in the ATS
Writes the referral into your ATS as an application, ready for recruiter review with no re-keying.
- Notify the stakeholders
Tells the people who need to act so the referral moves forward immediately rather than sitting in a queue.
- Keep the referrer informed
Updates the referring employee as the candidate progresses, which is what makes them refer again.
A complete application in the ATS, recruiters notified, and a referring employee who knows their referral landed and where it stands.
Capabilities
- In-channel submission - Referrals are accepted through the channel the employee already uses, with no separate portal to learn.
- Role validation against live postings - Confirms the referred role is actually open before the submission is created.
- Complete candidate capture - Gathers the details a submission needs up front, so nothing bounces back for missing information.
- Direct ATS creation - The referral becomes an application in your ATS, removing the manual handoff between employee and recruiting.
- Stakeholder notification - The right people are told immediately, so the referral does not wait on someone noticing it.
- Referrer progress updates - The referring employee is kept informed as the candidate moves, closing the feedback loop that keeps referrals coming.
Main use cases
A referral made in the flow of work - An engineer sees an opening and knows someone. They submit the referral from chat in a minute, the agent validates the role and captures the candidate details, and the application exists in the ATS before the conversation ends.
Referral program that stops leaking - Referrals previously arrived as ad hoc messages and were re-keyed when someone had time. Now every referral lands in the ATS as a complete application, so the program can actually be measured.
Referrers who stay engaged - An employee who referred last quarter never heard what happened and stopped bothering. With progress updates flowing back automatically, referring feels worth doing again.
Integrations
| Integration | Role in the agent flow |
|---|---|
| Your connected ATS (e.g. Greenhouse, Workday) | Receives the referral as an application and supplies the active postings the role is validated against |
| Your connected HRIS (e.g. Workday, HiBob, BambooHR, Rippling) | Identifies the referring employee and the stakeholders to notify |
| Harmony Service Desk | Native ticketing - creates the ticket, tracks it, and records the outcome |
| Harmony Notifications | Delivers updates through each recipient's preferred channel: Slack, Teams, or email |
FAQ
Through their preferred communication channel, which for most teams means Slack or Teams. There is no separate referral portal to log into, which is most of why referrals get made at all.
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