ReferralMob

ReferralMob, Inc. operated as a Boston-based talent acquisition company, positioning itself as a peer-to-peer job referral network. The firm was founded in 2013, with a public launch in 2015, by David Samuels, who served as CEO. Samuels, a former executive at energy intelligence software firm EnerNOC, leveraged his experience in scaling a high-growth company, where he helped increase revenue from $9 million to $380 million. The company aimed to address the limitations of internal employee referral programs by extending the network to the public.

The business operated a platform on both web and mobile that enabled a crowdsourced approach to recruitment. It allowed a network of individuals, the "mob," to refer people from their professional networks for job openings posted by employers. If a referred candidate was successfully hired, the referrer would receive a cash bonus, which at one point was $1,000. The company's revenue model was based on charging employers a success-based fee for each successful hire, which was reportedly $2,750 per placement in 2017. This model presented a lower-risk alternative to traditional recruiting agencies for client companies. Early clients included Boston-based companies like Drizly and GameFace Media.

ReferralMob's platform incorporated technology to streamline the hiring process. It utilized a machine learning algorithm to score and match candidate credentials against job descriptions, helping to vet and qualify applicants before they reached the employer. Every referred resume was also reviewed by an experienced HR recruiter to ensure quality and provide a curated list of top candidates to hiring managers. The company secured seed financing from investors including Stage 1 Ventures, MIT Media Lab founder Nicholas Negroponte, and other Boston technology leaders, raising a total of $2.76 million. Despite its initial momentum and a novel approach to the HR Tech market, the company is now defunct, having ceased operations around June 2019.

Keywords: referral recruiting, crowdsourced hiring, talent acquisition, HR tech, recruitment platform, hiring bonus, job referral network, employee referrals, candidate sourcing, social recruiting, peer-to-peer recruiting, David Samuels, Stage 1 Ventures, Boston startup, EnerNOC, recruitment technology, hiring marketplace, defunct startup, VC-backed, mobile recruiting