RE: Referral fees

[jgarison -at- ide -dot- com]

Thanks for singling me out!!!

While it seems IDe ranked at the top of the list for rewarding referrals,
let me point out a couple of things - and why the rewards ALL seem to be
rather paltry.

Let's say we recruit a technical writer who makes $70,000 (not unusual for
this market in the Boston area). 30% of that - an agency recruiting fee -
would amount to $21,000. That happens the be the amount in prizes we awarded
yesterday when we had our drawing. Believe me, that sort of figure whips
people into a frenzy! 42% (24 of 57) of the people we hired were the result
of referrals. 

And we saved our company a TON of money in doing so. Figuring an average
salary of $50,000 (LOW!) and an average fee of 30%, the fee per hire would
have been $15,000 times 24 hires = $360,000.  Not bad for a $21,000
investment that we paid to our own people instead of an agency ...

Also, just to make this even more relevant - we do not distinguish between
ANY hires in our company. EVERY person we hire is a member of our team, and
receives the same referral rewards, and every one is treated equally. It
does not matter if the person you refer is a CFO (we ARE Looking for one and
I could use a referral!) or a receptionist - they are all treated equally.
The message this sends is that ALL people at our company are highly valued. 

So, let's hope there's some ammunition for you to take to your company to
increase the referral rewards they pay ... it's money well spent!

John

John Garison
Documentation Manager
IDe
150 Baker Avenue Extension
Concord, MA 01742

Voice: 978-402-2907
Fax:    978-318-9376
http://www.ide.com



-----Original Message-----
From: Cheryl Magadieu [mailto:cherylm -at- atg -dot- com]
Sent: Wednesday, November 01, 2000 1:51 PM
To: TECHWR-L
Subject: Referral fees


I'd like to delve a bit deeper into a subject that we discussed on TECHWR-L 
last June: referral fees. Joanne Meehl asked whether finder's fees are 
commonplace when recruiting technical writers. A few people said that their 
company does indeed offer finder's fees. Here are some of the fees that 
people mentioned and the number of companies that offer those fees:

$2,500  1 company
$2,000  2 companies
$1,500  4 companies
$500     1 company

Some companies offer additional bonuses. For example, John Garrison said 
Integrated Development Enterprise offers a 4-day trip to the Bahamas and a 
chance to win a contest with $20,000 in prizes.

It was interesting comparing the various companies' referral fees with 
agency fees. John Garrison said agency recruiting fees are 25% to 35% of 
the employee's salary. John Posada said agencies pay $2,000 or $3,000 for a 
senior writer.

At my company, if a referral has been employed for 90 days, we offer a 
$3,000 referral fee for "technical" hires (such as developers) and $1,500 
for technical writers, plus a $250 gift certificate to J. Crew.  At the end 
of the year, employees who have referred other employees have a chance to 
win a drawing at the end of the year; the winner receives an 
all-expense-paid, one-week trip to an "exotic" location that's determined 
at the end of the year.

As you can imagine, I'm not sure why my employer considers technical 
writers to be non-technical employees.  In this company, technical writers 
are part of the Engineering department, are expected to have three to five 
years of tech writing experience, and are expected to quickly learn a good 
deal of material about Java programming and databases. Considering how 
difficult it is to hire experienced tech writers these days, I think the 
$3,000 "technical" employee fee is more appropriate.

I'd like to hear more about what the situation is like at your company. 
Please let me know the following

a) What is the referral fee for technical writers at your company?
b) Are technical writers considered to be "technical" hires at your company?

I'll compile a list of the responses and send them to the list.

Cheryl Magadieu


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