Helping a friend get in

Hi,

I’m a recent grad, helping a friend get in at the cie I work for the first time. Its about to be decision time and he’s against 3 other candidates.

I was wondering if its uncommon to just go straight to the team manager (laid back early 30’s) and telling him that I know my friend would be a great choice for the position. And I know he will as I’m working on the same floor, just in a different team.

Do what you can to help your friend. Just know you are putting your reputation on the line for him so make sure he respects and earns your recommendation.

Where I work personal recommendations mean a lot. Is a few hours of interviews worth more than knowing someone for years? Probably not, so it’s very powerful. Just be careful like Numi said. It can make you look bad if they don’t work out, but can also make you look very good if they turn out stellar.

As long as he’s genuinely qualified and you are confident he’s not going to be an embarrassment to you, go ahead and do it. At the stage between interview and hire, people are generally more concerned about institutional fit than ability to do the job - your intervention can make a big difference here as long as you have built up some credibility within your company and people like you.

This is because people don’t generally get interviewed if they aren’t plausibly competent for the job (courtesy interviews excepted). As long as the process is genuinely competitive (and not just for show while a pre-selected candidate is chosen), you can really help your friend here.

I know a place where you can’t get an interview unless you have an internal recommendation

^ Having an outside point of view isn’t very welcomed at that place.

Thanks a lot guys!

So I decided to just go ahead as I felt it was trully a win-win deal and I got a great performance review about 2 weeks ago so it would not backfire or anything.

I told the manager I think he’s a hard working / mature / pleasant person to work with and gave real examples to back it up. I also said I was not getting any compensation for his hiring…

He listened very well, said thanks and that he still had not interviewed 2 of the 4. But he had really liked him.

So that’s done.

Thanks again guys!