Attracting top talent to your business is a must for every employer. Competition for outstanding candidates is tight, so how do you find your next superstar? You can search for candidates through your company website, internet job boards, or recruiting agencies, but one of the best ways of finding new talent is through your current employees.

Like clockwork, every year brings a flood of young, bright graduates tossing their caps in the air and getting ready to jump into the real world. They’ve crushed it in undergrad or grad school and want to put their academic skills to the test. Many employers still aren’t sure about these over-confident Millennial grads and the most recent Gen Z grads (the generation graduating from college in 2018). These young adults may have stellar academics on their side, but not much practical experience. Millennials and Gen Z don’t yet know how to apply their academic skills and talents to the workplace. And some employers may find them a tad entitled.

"The resume is dead."

Attracting, hiring, and retaining high-level, quality employees is one of the most challenging jobs presented to human resources professionals today. In the workplace, retention rates are averaging about four years among employees across the board, and are even lower for millennial employees. Only about one-third of employees are engaged at work. And, close to three-fourths of CEOs are concerned about the availability of critical skills in the marketplace.

Gone are the days of posting a job description in the want-ads of the newspaper. Half of the working population probably doesn’t even know what a want-ad is. I’ll give you a hint—traditional want-ads went out of style with the rotary dial telephone, the top-loading Beta-Max, and cassette tapes.

The modern workplace is experiencing a tectonic shift. For the first time in history, we have five generations in the workplace at the same time. Employees from Traditionalists, born before 1946, to Generation Z, born after 1997, are all working together to power today’s organization.

Employee referral programs are the best source of new hires. More importantly, they're the best source of quality hires. Employees hired through employee referral programs have better retention and productivity than employees hired through other methods, and the associated hiring costs are also lower.

Two-thirds of executives now recognize diversity and inclusion as critical, up 10 percent from 2014. Companies that prioritize diversity and inclusion can boast improved engagement and improved revenue and profits. Employees from different background and experiences can also enhance an organization’s culture.

Plus, a feature in TechCrunch.

We are thrilled to announce that we have acquired Simppler’s powerful referral recommendation engine and matchmaking recruiting software, and secured additional funding from a new investor, Foundation Capital, with participation from previous investors True Ventures and SaaStr Fund.