Your Resume Might Be Great, But This Is What Makes People Say 'Hire Them'
Discover the power of high-engagement job referrals and why this could be a game-changer for your career
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
In today's unpredictable, hyper-competitive job market, resumes often disappear into a sea of sameness. Even highly qualified candidates struggle to stand out when their accomplishments echo those of countless others. What sets someone apart isn't always what's written on paper, but who's willing to speak up for them.
That's why your professional network is more valuable than ever. Relationships you've cultivated since undergrad, grad school, internships, previous roles, volunteer work and industry groups hold untapped potential. But it's not as simple as asking a friend for a favor. To truly leverage your network, you need to understand how to earn and give high-engagement referrals — the kind that open doors and drive real results.
Related: You Won't Find What Makes a Hire 'Special' on Their Resume
What is a high-engagement referral?
A high-engagement referral isn't just a polite nod or a casual mention. It's a personal, proactive endorsement. It signals a high level of trust and alignment between the recommender, the candidate and the opportunity. When someone offers a high-engagement referral, they're essentially saying, "I know this person well. I've worked with them. I believe in their abilities and character so strongly that I'm willing to put my own reputation on the line."
This type of referral typically goes beyond a LinkedIn endorsement. It may involve crafting a thoughtful introduction tailored to a specific role, reaching out to a hiring manager directly or guiding the candidate through interview preparation. Some advocates even go as far as recommending the candidate across multiple platforms and internal channels. These extra steps show intention and investment, and hiring teams take notice.
Why these referrals matter for leaders
For business leaders, high-engagement referrals can be transformative. Whether you're building a startup, leading a team or mentoring rising talent, referrals help you attract and retain high-performing individuals. Candidates who come recommended through trusted sources often prove to be stronger performers and cultural fits. The impact goes beyond recruitment. A culture where referrals are encouraged tends to be one where employees are engaged, invested and proud to bring others into the fold. It also elevates your brand as a place where talent thrives and relationships matter.
So why do high-engagement referrals work so well? First, they cut through the noise. In a landscape where hundreds of resumes might flood a hiring manager's inbox, a trusted referral can bring a candidate straight to the top of the pile. Second, they offer a signal of trustworthiness, adaptability and cultural fit — qualities that are hard to gauge on paper. And finally, they set a positive tone. Walking into an interview knowing someone has already championed your abilities can create instant rapport, boost your confidence, and even influence the outcome.
Of course, earning such a referral doesn't happen overnight. It begins with clarity. When you ask for a referral, be specific. Tell your contact what job you're pursuing, why you're a strong fit and how they can help. Make their job easier by offering a brief message they can tailor or highlighting shared experiences that make your ask feel relevant and authentic.
Even more important is the groundwork you lay before you need the referral. Stay in touch with mentors, colleagues and collaborators. Check in periodically. Share updates on your work. Offer support when they're navigating changes. The strongest referrals come from relationships that have been nurtured, not neglected until a favor is needed.
Related: 5 Steps to Hiring the Right People for Your Business
How to earn one
Just as you want to receive high-engagement referrals, you should also look for opportunities to offer them. If a former coworker is job hunting and you can genuinely speak to their strengths, take the time to advocate for them. Write the email. Make the call. The value you offer someone else could have a lasting impact — and it positions you as someone who lifts others as you rise.
At the heart of it all is trust. In today's evolving professional landscape, trust is the currency of opportunity. It's not just about credentials or connections. It's about who will speak up for you with conviction — and who you're willing to stand behind in return.
Build that kind of network. Invest in it. And when the time comes, you'll have more than a resume — you'll have real advocates in your corner.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
19 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Get to know Providence Journal summer intern Bella DeCrescenzo
This summer, The Providence Journal is excited to welcome Bella DeCrescenzo to the newsroom as an intern. A West Bay resident, Bella started on June 2 and will be a full-time presence in our newsroom through mid-August, when she will head back to the University of Maryland to continue her academic career. We talked to Bella about her early experiences in journalism and how she hopes to grow in the profession. Why are you interested in journalism? What topics are you most interested in? I am interested in journalism because I want to aid members of the community by amplifying their voices to make sure that their stories are told. I think that many people's experiences can be overlooked, yet are shared by others and often deserve to be recognized. I want to share these important stories with the community. I also know how important having informed community members is to the strength of our democracy and I want to help provide people with timely news. I am most interested in writing about local politics and the local impacts of federal politics. I also enjoy covering local events and writing features about local community members and businesses. I have some experience with environmental reporting, which I would enjoy exploring more. I really want to explore as many different topics as possible this summer so I can gain a variety of skills and figure out what I enjoy reporting on the most. What are you hoping to get out of your internship with The Providence Journal? Through my internship with The Providence Journal, I hope to get more consistent reporting experience to help strengthen my newswriting skills and gain confidence as a reporter. I hope to report on a variety of beats and cover many topics to figure out which beats I want to focus on in the future. Compiling clips across many beats will also allow me to build a strong portfolio to reflect my time at The Providence Journal. I also hope to cultivate strong professional relationships with my colleagues this summer. I want to spend time shadowing the experienced journalists within the newsroom and hearing about their journalistic processes. From writing tips to career advice, I want to take this opportunity to learn from the professionals around me and forge meaningful connections that last beyond this internship. Tell us about some of your favorite journalism-related experiences from the University of Maryland. Through my classes and extracurriculars at the University of Maryland, I have gained some exciting journalism-related experiences that have continuously made me more confident in my career path. During a broadcast writing class I took this past year, my professor gave us the opportunity to attend Sen. Angela Alsobrooks' campaign headquarters on election night. Alongside journalists from Fox 5 and other well-known stations, we had an amazing experience filming speeches for our package and interviewing very passionate, emotional supporters of Alsobrooks. This past year, I also covered a weeklong environmental-justice symposium where we interviewed the heads of the event about their experience spreading awareness about the effects of climate change on marginalized communities. While I have had the opportunity to cover many more exciting topics and events, the journalism program at the University of Maryland has also given me the opportunity to work with many experienced journalists. Due to the journalism college's impressive staff, I have the support and guidance of Washington Post and CNN reporters who have pushed me to improve as a journalist. What are some things you want readers to know about you? I want readers to know that while I am still a student and am still learning, they can trust my work to be timely and accurate. I hope that they know how seriously I take this opportunity and how excited I am to be able to provide them with important local news. I also want readers to know that while I go to school in Maryland, I am a Rhode Island resident and have stayed up to date on the current issues and happenings in Rhode Island. Overall, I want them to know that I am excited to report on the issues that they want to read about. Their experiences and what they want to learn more about are what will influence me as I look for stories to write and news to cover. I look forward to jumping into local reporting. This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Bella DeCrescenzo to serve summer internship with Providence Journal
Yahoo
19 minutes ago
- Yahoo
These Artificial Intelligence (AI) Stocks Are Quietly Outperforming the Market
Two AI stocks have crushed the broader market in the past year, and they seem primed for more upside. Fast-growing demand for AI tools in cloud-based services is helping these companies attract new customers. 10 stocks we like better than Twilio › Artificial intelligence (AI) stocks have been in fine form on the market in the past few years, and that's not surprising, as this technology has supercharged the growth of many companies. Thanks to huge investments in AI hardware such as semiconductors, as well as the rapidly growing adoption of AI software to boost productivity, it is estimated that overall spending on AI could hit a massive $628 billion by 2028. This explains why investors have been buying AI stocks hand over fist. However, there are certain AI stocks that have significantly outpaced the broader stock market, and importantly, they still have the potential to deliver more upside. Let's take a closer look at these two names that aren't all that popular, but have been outperforming the market in the past year. Twilio (NYSE: TWLO) stock is up an impressive 115% in the past year as of this writing, easily outperforming the 11% gains clocked by the Nasdaq Composite over the same period. The good part is that Twilio still trades at an attractive 26 times forward earnings and 4 times sales, even after its terrific surge in the past year. The valuation makes buying Twilio stock a no-brainer right now, especially considering how AI now plays an important role in accelerating its growth. Twilio's application programming interfaces (APIs) allow its clients to connect with their customers through various channels such as voice, text, email, video, chat, and others. Twilio points out that its customer engagement platform is used by more than 300,000 enterprises globally. Specifically, the company ended the first quarter of 2025 with more than 335,000 active customer accounts, an increase of 7% from the previous year. This huge customer base is a key reason why one can consider buying Twilio stock right now, as it gives the company the opportunity to cross-sell its AI offerings to a big pool of customers. Twilio has been offering multiple AI tools to customers, such as generative AI-powered assistants that can help tackle customer service queries autonomously, integrating human-like conversational AI assistants to talk to customers in real time and derive critical insights from customers' data with the help of AI. The growing demand for these AI services helps Twilio win more business from existing customers. This is evident from the five-percentage-point jump in fiscal 2025 Q1's dollar-based net expansion rate compared to the first quarter of 2024. The higher customer spending, along with an increase in Twilio's customer base, are the reasons why it has raised its full-year organic revenue growth guidance to 8% from the earlier forecast of 7.5%. This combination of higher customer spending, along with an increase in the customer count, explains why analysts expect a 24% increase in Twilio's earnings this year, followed by impressive growth over the next couple of years as well. Assuming Twilio indeed generates $6.21 per share in earnings after a couple of years and trades at 30 times earnings at that time (in line with the tech-laden Nasdaq-100 index's forward earnings multiple), its stock price could jump to $186. That would be a 59% jump from current levels. So, investors can expect more upside from this AI stock going forward, which is why it would be a smart idea to consider buying it while it trades at attractive levels. Snowflake (NYSE: SNOW) share prices have jumped an impressive 64% in the past year despite bouts of volatility, and a closer look at the price chart will tell us that the stock has made a sharp move up in the past couple of months. Importantly, more upside in Snowflake stock cannot be ruled out, as fast-growing adoption of the company's AI-focused data cloud tools is helping it build a robust revenue pipeline for the future. Snowflake's data cloud platform enables customers to safely store their data in a single platform, which can then be used to derive insights and build applications. The company's AI-specific tools are now helping customers get more out of their data. They can apply large language models (LLMs) to their data to build applications such as AI agents, generative AI assistants, and search documents through natural language prompts, among other things. These offerings are turning out to be a hit among Snowflake customers, with nearly 45% of its 11,600-strong customer base using its AI tools every week in the previous quarter. Additionally, AI is helping Snowflake attract more customers. This is evident from the 19% year-over-year increase in its customer count in Q1 of fiscal 2026. This combination of an increase in Snowflake's customer base, along with the growing adoption of its AI tools, is the reason why its remaining performance obligations (RPO) increased by an impressive 34% year over year in the previous quarter to $6.7 billion, which was better than the 26% growth in its product revenue to just under $1 billion. The strong growth in its revenue pipeline encouraged management to increase its fiscal 2026 revenue guidance as well. What's more, Snowflake's earnings are expected to increase by a third in the current fiscal year to $1.10 per share. Consensus estimates project faster growth over the next couple of fiscal years. That won't be surprising, as Snowflake's ability to win more business from its existing customers and an improvement in its overall customer count should allow it to continue improving its revenue pipeline, especially considering that it sees its total addressable market growing to a whopping $342 billion in 2028. In all, Snowflake investors can expect more upside from this cloud stock following the impressive gains that it has delivered in the past year, driven by a new catalyst in the form of AI. Before you buy stock in Twilio, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and Twilio wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $659,171!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $891,722!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 995% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 172% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join . See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of June 9, 2025 Harsh Chauhan has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Snowflake and Twilio. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. These Artificial Intelligence (AI) Stocks Are Quietly Outperforming the Market was originally published by The Motley Fool Sign in to access your portfolio
Bloomberg
23 minutes ago
- Bloomberg
Charting the Global Economy: Key Central Banks Hold on Rates
Central bankers in the US, UK and Japan held the line on interest rates this week as officials attempt to gauge the impact of tariffs, uncertainty about economic activity and war in the Middle East. While the median forecast from US Federal Reserve officials showed two interest-rate cuts by the end of the year, seven policymakers — up from four at the March meeting — indicated they see no reduction.
