Crowdsource rock star employees with Hiring Bounty, earn cash for referrals

Launching today, South African startup Hiring Bounty, is set to shake up the recruitment industry by offering substantial rewards for referring a friend or acquintance for a job vacancy.

Traditionally, job listing sites have offered employee referral programs as an afterthought, but with Hiring Bounty, employee referral is front and center. Hiring Bounty’s, MD Greg Schneider says that companies seeking to fill a position can source candidates faster and at a lower cost through crowdsourcing when compared to recruitment agents.

Schneider says that Hiring Bounty plans to capitalise on the connections of people to make recruiters obsolete. By leveraging trusted networks among people, Hiring Bounty aims to identify skilled candidates and better place them in suited positions. People that share social circles are often privy to each other’s skill sets and career aspirations. Job recommendations shared within these circles are more likely to find their way to a suitable candidate who will follow up the lead.

Hiring Bounty was born out of Schneider’s own experiences of recommending friends for positions, and struggling to find a position that matched his own skill set and personality. “I studied online marketing, but kept getting offered jobs in IT, before long I was adding recruiters to my spam list. After recommending a few varsity friends for a job I realised there is a better way to
match candidates and employers,” he says.

Aesthetically Hiring Bounty is a lot of fun. It’s beautifully designed with an Old Western theme and intuitive. Listing a vacant position on the site is free and employers are required to set a reward or “bounty.” A quick look around reveals that bounties range from about ZAR2 000 and ZAR10 000 which is split three ways between the referrer, the successful candidate and Hiring Bounty itself.

Job seekers can also apply directly for a job without being referred. Landing a job through a direct application will allow you to claim both the referrer and successful candidate bounty.

As the bounty is only paid when an employer hires a candidate referred to them through the site, the risk free approach has already attracted the attention of major brands such as Woolworths and Groupon on launch.

Hiring Bounty emerged from the Silicon Cape startup hub and has its sights set on disrupting the recruitment industry globally where it looks to compete with heavyweights such as WiseStep.