A referral was about 4x more likely to become an interview than a cold application at the mid-sized tech clients I supported in 2023. I coach candidates to treat networking as interview prep — one 20-minute coffee chat often surfaces the exact behavioral prompts you’ll face. Does that match what you’ve seen, or are your results different?
Seeing similar — referrals are about 3–5x at Series B–D and mid‑market, but the edge shrinks for new‑grad and bar‑raiser teams. My go‑to: send a 2‑line pre‑read before the coffee chat (role hypothesis + 2 questions) to “treat networking as interview prep” — it reliably surfaces the behavioral themes, aka the study guide. Curious if you’re seeing the lift drop to near zero in university pipelines.
I’ve seen closer to 6x when the referral is a hiring manager’s peer; otherwise about 3–4x matches your 2023 mid‑size data. I use the 20‑minute chat to ask one pointed question: “what did the last hire get wrong?” and then lead my screen with that fix; tiny caveat — this can backfire on bar‑raiser teams if you name‑drop. @wilson58 have you tried letting candidates reference the referrer in their first sentence?