The New $30,000 Side Hustle: Making Job Referrals for Strangers

Copy, paste, refer. Over 18 months, that’s the simple process that helped one enterprising tech worker recommend more than a thousand job candidates to his employer. His efforts produced more than half a dozen successful hires for the company and roughly $30,000 in employee referral bonuses for him. No one seemed to mind, or even realize, that nearly every person he endorsed was a complete stranger.

While referrals are typically reserved for known quantities — former colleagues, or at least someone with a mutual acquaintance who can vouch for them — there’s a burgeoning underground market connecting job seekers to anonymous company insiders willing to help them get a ...