If you’ve been watching our video series this year, you’ve heard us talk about referrals from the candidate side. How to ask for them, how to make it easy for the person you’re asking, how to follow up. The system works — we’ve seen it change outcomes for clients who might otherwise have been filtered out before a recruiter ever opened their file.
This video is different. It’s for you — the employed professional who wants to help.
The job market right now is genuinely difficult. Applications are being filtered by automated systems at a scale most candidates don’t realize. A mid-level role can attract 300 to 1,000+ applications in the first week. Most get screened before any human reviews them. A referral from someone on the inside is one of the most powerful things you can do for someone in your network.
But there’s a spectrum of what a referral can be. And most people stop at the first step.
The Referral That Just Sits vs. the One That Changes the Outcome
Submitting someone’s name through a referral link or adding it to an application is valuable. We never want to discourage that. But here’s what we know from years of seeing both ends of the process: the referral that changes an outcome is the one where the referrer went further.
Kelly puts it this way: the difference is the follow-through. Beyond the submission. Asking: did you hear from them yet? Let me message the recruiter. Let me find out. Staying with the person you referred instead of handing it off and walking away.
When Chez gets a referral from someone she trusts — someone whose judgment she knows — she processes it differently. Not out of favoritism. Out of signal. A strong referral from a credible person is already a first-pass, and in a pipeline with hundreds of applications, that matters enormously.
What the Internal Referral Questionnaire Is Really Asking
Most companies with an ATS — Greenhouse, Lever, Ashby, and similar — have some version of an internal referral form. When you submit a referral, you’re usually asked to answer a set of questions:
- How do you know this person?
- How long have you known them?
- How would you rate the quality of their work? (Top 50%, top 10%, top 1%)
- Is this person aware they’re being referred?
- Open notes field — your opportunity to add context
Here’s the honest truth about this questionnaire: it’s where most referrals become real or disappear.
If you rank someone in the top 10%, explain why. An example. A moment. A specific skill or quality that stands out. If you say someone is in the top 1%, your recruiter will want to understand what puts them there. This is not the moment to undersell someone out of humility — or oversell them out of loyalty.
The notes field is where you do the most work. Something beyond ‘they’re great’ or ‘I think they’d be a good fit.’ What project did they lead? How did they handle a chaotic situation? What do you know about them that won’t come through on a resume? If the role requires AI fluency and your referral has built automations that saved their team hours — say that. Explicitly.
Before You Submit: The 10-Minute Call
If you can, talk to the person you’re referring before you submit. Even ten minutes. This does two things: it gives you better material for the questionnaire, and it tells you more about where they are and what they need.
Ask them: What would be the highlight you’d lead with in an interview? What would you want me to say about you? Is there anything about your background that doesn’t show up on the resume but matters for this role?
Ask them to write you a short blurb — two to three sentences about their experience and why they’re a fit for this specific role. That blurb can go directly into the notes field of your referral submission, into a message to the recruiter, or into a message to the hiring manager. Let the person you’re referring do some of that work — they know their story best.
Also confirm the job link. If they’ve already applied through LinkedIn Easy Apply or another external tool, ask them for the job URL from the company’s careers page. That URL usually contains the job ID, which makes it much easier to connect your referral to the right application in the system.
After You Submit: What Advocates Actually Do
Most people submit the referral and consider their job done. The ones that actually move the needle don’t stop there.
Find the recruiter. If you don’t know who’s working the role, message a recruiter in your current department and ask: hey, I submitted a referral for [job]. Do you know who the recruiting contact is? It takes two minutes. Recruiter relationships are often more accessible than people realize — they want referrals, and they want to talk to people who are vouching for a candidate.
Message the recruiting contact or the hiring manager. You don’t need a long note. Something like: ‘I just submitted a referral for [name] for [role]. Happy to share more if it helps. Let me know if you have five minutes.’ That’s it. That’s the message.
If it’s your own team or an adjacent team, bring it up in your next manager one-on-one. ‘Hey, I referred someone for X role. I wanted you to know I’d vouch for them — here’s why.’ That second layer of context, coming from you rather than a form, carries real weight.
Share what you can with the person you referred. What’s the hiring manager like? How long have they been there? Is the team under pressure right now, or in a growth moment? What does culture really look like day to day? Giving someone this kind of context before their interview isn’t giving them the answers — it’s helping them show up prepared and calm. That shows up in the conversation.
A Real Example: What This Looks Like End to End
Chez tells a story in this video that we’ve referenced across the series because it captures the whole picture. A candidate referred for a role. The referrer — someone on the team — didn’t just submit the application. They filled out the questionnaire with specific context. Then they scheduled time with the hiring manager — their manager — to talk through exactly why this person would be a fit: projects, skills, collaborative style. Then they followed up with Chez to say: hey, I already spoke with the manager. This person is in your queue.
The hiring manager messaged Chez separately: expedite this person. The candidate moved through the process. The referrer later served as an internal reference during the offer stage — accessible, credible, already at the company. The outcome: an offer for someone whose resume didn’t match the profile on paper. The referrer made the case the resume couldn’t.
That’s the range of what’s possible. And it took, by Chez’s estimate, about 45 minutes of the referrer’s time, spread across the whole process.
If You're Employed Right Now and Want to Help
Here’s a simple starting point. Go into your company’s internal job portal. Look at three open roles. Think about who you’ve worked with — or who is in your extended network — who fits any of them. Reach out to them. Let them know the role exists. Ask if they’d like a referral. Set up a ten-minute call.
Then fill out the referral like it matters. Because it does. Rate them honestly. Write context. Find the recruiter. Send a note. Follow up once.
That’s the whole thing. It’s not complicated. It’s just effort — and in this market, the effort is the whole ballgame.
If You're the Candidate: What This Means for You
You can make it easier for the people who want to help you. Write the blurb they can forward. Give them the job link. Tell them what you’d want them to highlight — don’t make them guess. Thank them at every step. And if they’re not comfortable going further than sharing a link, that’s okay too. Anything you can do is welcomed and appreciated.
At Allora, part of how we work with clients is making sure they’re ready for the moment when someone opens a door. Career summaries, referral blurbs, interview prep that starts before the process — all of it. Because having someone go to bat for you is only half of it. You have to be ready to walk through the door.
What's Next: The Introduction
We recorded this video as part of a natural progression. Video 3 was about networking and referrals from the candidate’s perspective. Video 4 is about advocacy from the inside. Video 5 goes one step further: the warm introduction.
If you know someone who’s trying to get a connection at a company and you know someone at that company — you can introduce them. It’s a group message. A yenta move. It’s one of the most underused tools in the networking playbook, and it’s the one we help clients use most.
Stay tuned.
Ready to talk through your search? Book a free consultation with Allora: https://calendly.com/allora-collective-free-consultation
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