How Crisp increased its referral hires by 411%
Crisp's word-of-mouth referral program worked, until the team outgrew it. A launch day, a mobile app, and a leaderboard turned referring into a company-wide habit.
A word-of-mouth program that outgrew word of mouth
Crisp is a Dutch online supermarket delivering fresh food across the Netherlands, built around the value that the team achieves everything together. Hiring had always leaned on that culture, with employees recommending people from their own networks.
As the company scaled past 400 employees, keeping the referral program engaging and its openings visible through word of mouth alone became harder.
“With Cruit, we carry our Crisp value that we achieve it together, and bring in the talent we need to achieve our mission. Those two goals were united by the Cruit app.”
Referrals that don't scale with the team
The existing program worked at first but struggled to keep momentum as headcount grew. Crisp needed a more efficient, cost-effective way to simplify referring, to communicate clearly what a strong candidate looked like so it could avoid costly mishires, and to give leadership real analytics on the referral funnel.
- Reduce time-to-hire.
- Increase the apply-to-hire ratio.
- Increase employee engagement.
- Establish a data-driven referral process.
- Increase applicant diversity.
A launch day, a leaderboard, and an app in every pocket
Cruit ran a Launch Day at Crisp's Amsterdam headquarters, where 90% of employees downloaded the app on day one. The mobile app let people refer someone the moment they thought of them and follow that referral through every interview stage, keeping engagement high long after launch.
A leaderboard and rewards system, including a coffee machine for the first employee to facilitate a hire, turned referring into something the whole office wanted in on.
“Cruit is the most important channel for the visibility of our jobs.”
411% more referral hires, and every candidate worth a look
Employees generated 222 referrals and more than 3,500 job shares, creating over 180,000 impressions for Crisp's roles. That activity converted into 138 hires, a 411% increase in referral hires.
Just as important, the quality held up. Referrals arrived pre-vetted by the people who already knew the culture, so the team spent its time on candidates worth interviewing.
“The quality of candidates through Cruit is very high. All of them were seriously good candidates, zero people who are irrelevant.”
The future with Crisp
Cruit is opening the program beyond the payroll, letting anyone, not just employees, share Crisp's jobs and earn a reward for a successful hire. It's a move that could extend the program's reach by 40% or more.
- Open referrals to external networks, not just employees
- Reward every successful referral with up to €1,500
- Extend the program's reach by 40% or more
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