A Referral Is a Lead. Not a Free Pass.
One applicant gets evaluated. The other gets introduced. This week Chris asks when an employee referral supplies useful information and when it quietly becomes an exemption from the hiring process. An explicitly hypothetical two-candidate meeting separates the recommendation from the evidence, then brings it back to ask what it actually adds. Keep referrals. Stop letting the introduction finish the assessment.
Trace one referred applicant and one applicant from another route through an open search. Where did an introduction become a different standard? Share a useful safeguard without names…
The skinny
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