Employee Referrals & CRM: Powering Multi-Channel Recruiting at TÜV Rheinland

‍Sector: Engineering Services
Global Presence: 50 countries worldwide
Employees: 22,000
Customer since 2019

The Challenge

The shortage of skilled professionals and the high demand for specialized experts present growing challenges for TÜV Rheinland’s Talent Acquisition team. A key part of their strategy was to reach candidates through the widest possible range of recruiting channels—while keeping administrative effort under control. To achieve this, seamless integration with the already implemented applicant tracking system, SAP SuccessFactors, was essential.

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The Solution

With CleverConnect, TÜV Rheinland now systematically leverages the networks of its employees through a digital referral platform. The results speak for themselves: one in five referred candidates is hired. But referrals are just one pillar of TÜV Rheinland’s recruiting strategy.
Melanie Bartsch, Team Lead Global Active Sourcing, focuses on proactive approaches to talent acquisition. To manage the operational complexity of this multi-channel approach, she relies on CleverConnect’s Candidate Relationship Management. All candidate profiles flow into this system—complete with all relevant information and contact history, regardless of the sourcing channel. Thanks to the integration with SAP SuccessFactors, both recruiters and candidates benefit from seamless processes.

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“In today’s connected world, everything revolves around data. At the same time, the shortage of skilled professionals is a challenge that’s here to stay. CleverConnect addresses this with the concept of ‘profile recycling.’ Instead of relying on a linear, end-to-end approach, we enable a cycle where talent profiles from different sourcing channels—such as employee referrals, the career site, and more—are seamlessly connected within a central system.”
Melanie Bartsch, Teamlead Global Active Sourcing

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The Results

The outcomes speak for themselves:

• Every 5th referral leads to a hire.
• CRM serves as the single source of truth, consolidating all recruiting channels.
• Seamless integration with SAP SuccessFactors streamlines recruiting processes.
• Proactive recruiting and referrals open up new sources of skilled talent.

“Other pooling solutions tend to be cumbersome and not very user-friendly. CleverConnect CRM provides smart, modern features such as talent pool alerts, which notify recruiters in real time when a new candidate registers. The seamless integration with our SAP SuccessFactors system was also crucial for us, since we operate globally and cover 50 countries.”
Melanie Bartsch, Teamlead Global Active Sourcing

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