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Joanne writes:
> Hi all,
> A common practice in high tech is to pay employees a
> "finder's fee" or bonus
> for bringing in an engineer, for example, because it saves the company
> recruiting costs, among other reasons.
>
> I'm curious: Is such a thing commonplace when recruiting
> technical writers?
> And if so, how much was the "fee", and was it paid to you once the new
> employee was there a certain amount of time?
Our company has a flat policy of a UKP1000 finder's fee, paid out at the
time of the employee's first salary review (6 months after starting). This
really encourages people to get their mates in, and makes the whole world of
interpersonal networking such fun.
The justification for the policy is that recruitment consultants ask for a
_lot_ more than this; about 10-15% of the employee's annual salary seems to
be about average. Thus, _not_ offering a recruitment bounty is a false
economy. And (theoretically) you, as an employee of the company, aren't
about to recommend a complete idiot, in case they make you look bad, whereas
recruitment consultants... ;)