- Solutions
- Products
- Community
- Resources
- Company
Call Sales +44 808 164 2563
Create incredible candidate experiences that communicate your brand, mission, and values with recruitment marketing solutions.
Learn moreCommunicate effectively and efficiently with the candidates that can drive your business forward.
Learn moreSelect the right candidates to drive your business forward and simplify how you build winning, diverse teams.
Learn moreHelp your best internal talent connect to better opportunities and see new potential across your entire organisation.
Learn moreCommunicate collectively with large groups of candidates and effectively tackle surges in hiring capacity.
Learn moreAccess tools that help your team create a more inclusive culture and propel your DEI program forward.
Learn moreRebound and respond to the new normal of retail with hiring systems that are agile enough to help you forge ahead.
Learn moreAccelerate the hiring of key talent to deliver point of care and support services that meet and exceed your promise of patient satisfaction.
Learn moreAttract and engage candidates with technical competencies, accelerate hiring for much-needed skills, and advance expertise within your valued workforce.
Learn moreSimplify how you recruit finance, insurance, and banking candidates with a unified platform built to match top talent with hard-to-fill roles.
Learn moreYour business strategy depends on your people strategy. Keep both in lockstep with the iCIMS Talent Cloud.
Learn moreBuild an engaging, high-converting talent pipeline that moves your business forward.
Learn moreDeliver the innovation your talent team needs, along with the global scale and security you demand.
Learn moreDeliver tailored technology experiences that delight users and power your talent transformation with the iCIMS Talent Cloud.
Learn moreThe #1 ATS in market share, our cloud-based recruiting software is built for both commercial and large, global employers.
Learn more Talk to salesAttract the best talent for your business with powerful, on-brand career websites that excite candidates and drive engagement.
Learn more Talk to salesCombine behavior-based marketing automation with AI insights to build talent pipelines, engage candidates with multi-channel marketing campaigns, and automatically surface the right talent for the job.
Learn more Talk to salesEmpower candidates with automated self-service, qualification screening, and interview scheduling through an AI-enabled digital assistant.
Learn more Talk to salesSimplify employee onboarding with automated processes that maximize engagement and accelerate productivity.
Learn more Talk to salesModernize, streamline, and accelerate your communication with candidates and employees.
Learn more Talk to salesTransform the talent experience by showcasing your authentic employer brand through employee-generated video testimonials.
Learn more Talk to salesSimplify recruiting, dynamically engage talent, and reduce hiring bias with job matching and recruiting chatbot technology.
Learn moreStreamline and centralize your HR tech stack with configurable, flexible, secure and reliable integrations.
Learn moreHow PRMG attracts 50% more applicants for niche finance roles with the iCIMS Talent Cloud.
Learn moreThousands strong, our global community of talent professionals includes creatives, innovators, visionaries, and experts.
Learn moreTogether we’re creating the world’s largest ecosystem of integrated recruiting technologies.
Learn morePartner with our global professional services team to develop a winning strategy, build your team and manage change.
Learn moreExplore our network of more than 300 certified, trusted third-party service and advisory partners.
Learn moreExpert guidance about recruitment solutions, changes in the industry, and the future of talent.
Learn moreExpert guidance about recruitment solutions, changes in the industry, and the future of talent.
Learn moreStay up to date with the latest terminology and verbiage in the HR software ecosystem.
Learn morePartner with iCIMS to build the right strategies, processes, and experience to build a winning workforce.
Learn moreDeliver the innovation your talent team needs, along with the global scale and security you demand.
Learn moreWatch the recording of our latest webinar looking at key findings from a recent study and explore short-term and long-term solutions for the talent crisis in 2022 and beyond.
Watch on-demandView press releases, media coverage, and the latest hiring data. See what analysts are saying about iCIMS.
Learn moreiCIMS is the Talent Cloud company that empowers organizations to attract, engage, hire, and advance the talent that builds a winning workforce.
Learn moreGet to know the award-winning leadership team shaping the future of the recruiting software industry.
Learn moreWe believe the future of work isn't something that "happens" to you. It's something you create. We actively create the future of work with our customers every day.
Learn moreStreamline your tech stack and take advantage of a better user experience and stronger data governance with ADP and the iCIMS Talent Cloud.
Learn moreThe combined power of iCIMS and Infor helps organizations strategically align their business and talent objectives.
Learn moreOur award-winning partnership with Microsoft is grounded in a shared desire to transform the workplace and the hiring team experience.
Learn moreOur partnership with Ultimate Kronos Group (UKG) supports the entire talent lifecycle by bringing frictionless recruiting solutions to UKG Pro Onboarding.
Learn moreLet’s get in touch. Reach out to learn more about iCIMS products and services.
Learn more
October 19, 2018 
3 min read
EmployeeReferrals.com has mined data from our long-term client companies to calculate the median employment duration for referral hires and non-referral hires. Our study encompasses over 50 companies and 91,000 employees. The results were encouraging, with 50 percent of referrals retaining their employment for at least 38 months compared to 22 months for non-referral hires, an improvement of 70 percent.
In other words, referral hires stay 70 percent longer than non-referral hires.
After determining overall employment duration we broke the data down by industry and company size. We found that small and medium sized companies experienced much better retention than enterprise level companies. In fact, employees stayed 122 percent longer at smaller companies. Our retention at enterprise clients is lower because they employ a large number of entry level retail workers in addition to a smaller number of highly skilled corporate and tech employees.
Key insights:
We found that companies with a focus on technology retained employees significantly longer. We believe this to be more of a reflection of the fact that nearly all their employees work corporate jobs.
That being said, it’s interesting to see that Referral hires provided a bigger boost to retention in industries with high turnover. Referral hires at low turnover companies only stayed 51 percent longer while referral hires at the high turnover companies stayed 122 percent longer.
Reducing Future Hiring Costs
Because referral hires stay 70 percent longer, their positions don’t need to be refilled as often, leading to a 41 percent reduction in costs associated with backfilling the position as outlined below:
When a referral hire is made, these costs are incurred 41 percent less frequently in the future. It’s not a stretch to say that referrals cost about half as much over the life of the hire.
After calculating the retention rate for referral and non-referral hires, we wondered what the retention looks like for employees who submit referrals. Does having a friend at the company prompt people to stay longer?
Referring employees stay about 20 percent longer than standard hires.
A Final Note: Median vs. Average Employment Duration
If the employment duration seems a little short to you, that’s because we’re calculating median employment duration, not the average, which is more commonly used. We’d like to take a moment to point out that while the median referral hire stays 38 months, the average duration of employment is much longer. Unfortunately, we can’t compute average retention until the last of the employees has ended their employment. Realistically, it could take 30 years to get a complete picture of average employment duration, while our oldest clients have only used our software for about five years.
The following chart shows the difference between median retention and average retention:
