How is the Friends Program (Cisco) an employee referral program?
The Friends Program, introduced by Michael McNeal in the late 1990s and no longer active at Cisco Systems, leveraged employees in a specific role to communicate with and excite possible applicants for similar roles who had indicated a potential interest in joining Cisco Systems via the corporate website, an event, etc. As with all sourcing initiatives, a well-designed ERP accomplishes three things, including finding talent; pre-assessing talent; and selling talent on the idea of working for the organization. The “friends” concept was primarily designed to support selling talent on the idea of joining Cisco, although an argument could also be made that the conversations also supported assessment. The premise of any “friends” program is that your employees are the most credible and believable salespeople when it comes to convincing candidates that a particular job is exciting. In a large organization, administering such a program can prove logistically challenging, which is why we recomm
