We often hear about it - whether in business or through recruitment firms. Cooptation is the act of recommending a person for a position in a company (or in a firm).
To put it simply, we offer a friend or acquaintance a position in a company or for a position that we have seen on a jobboard, or even for a recruitment firm.
Cooptation, different from the "piston"
Co-optation is very different from "piston": the co-opted person will have to go through all the classic stages of recruitment, from interview to tests, ending with reference checks.
When we talk about cooptation, we can also think of recommendation, sponsorship or participatory recruitment. In business, for example, many HR departments put it in place because:
This allows a better filter in relation to the responses to offers received throughout the year and to unsolicited applications.
An employee won't risk recommending someone who doesn't even pass the CV stage. A bad recommendation is bound to be reflected in its own internal reputation.
Co-opted candidates would be hired 55% faster than those from company career sites according to a recent LinkedIn study.
Co-opted employees are more quickly integrated into the teams and into the culture of the company.
Cooptation reduces turnover. The same LinkedIn study tells us that a person recruited by co-option is 23 times less likely to leave their position.
A proven method
Co-optation in France represents:
23% of relevant applications came from co-optation and 48% of companies that used employee co-optation to recruit an executive, hired a known or recommended person - Apec study carried out in 2018
10.4 co-options would be enough for a successful recruitment - Keycoopt 2020 study
The candidates who come by co-option are generally more qualitative. The study carried out by Jobvite a few years ago showed that people recruited by co-option stayed on average longer in the company.
According to this same study, after 3 years, 47% of people recruited by co-optation were still in post against 14% via responses to advertisements on job boards.
Are you looking to set up a co-optation program within your company?
The recruiting school has studied the question and produced a complete article, with an example of a program that is easy to set up. The advantages are numerous for the company (in particular financially and on the quality of the candidates) and for the employees.
Co-optation at Urban Linker
One of the brakes that could be noted on the use of the cooptation system by candidates is the lack of follow-up on the part of recruiters, who are not sufficiently involved - whether in a company or in a recruitment firm. Coopters send profiles but they are not contacted immediately, if at all.
This is why at Urban Linker, we have set up a simple system. One person can co-opt another:
Directly in "spontaneous application" via this form - indicating the contact details of the 2 protagonists and the type of position desired.
Thanks to the "I refer a friend" button at the top of each job posting. An example on this post from PHP Symfony.
If the co-opted person is placed with one of our clients, then it is a reward in the form of an Amazon voucher worth € 500 for the co-opter. With this system, we placed around 25% of the people who were co-opted between 2018 and 2020.
How it works ?
Fill out one of the forms.
After 5 working days, you will receive an email or a call from one of our consultants.
If the co-opted candidate matches the expectations of one of our clients, then he or she starts the recruitment process.
The co-optant will receive the € 500 voucher on the first day of integration of the co-opted in the company.
