Employee Referral Form Template

A referral is only worth more than an application if it carries something an application can't: someone who has actually seen the candidate work. This template asks the referrer how they know the candidate, how long for, and what they saw them do — then confirms the candidate has agreed to be referred before recruiting contacts them.

Use this template

Last updated 21 August 2026

Fields in this template

Your Namerequired
Your Work Emailrequired
Your Team or Departmentrequired
Your Employee ID
Candidate's Full Namerequired
Candidate's Email Addressrequired
Candidate's Phone Number
Candidate's LinkedIn, Portfolio or Personal Site
Role You're Referring Them Forrequired
Requisition or Job Posting ID
How Do You Know This Person?required
We were on the same team · Same company, different team · They were my manager · They reported to me · We worked together as client and supplier · We studied together · Community, meetup or open source · Friend or family — I have not worked with them
How Long Have You Known Them?required
What Have You Seen Them Do?required
Where Would They Fit — and Where Wouldn't They?
Does the candidate know you're referring them?required
Yes — they've agreed to be referred · Not yet — please don't contact them until I confirm
As far as you know, have they already applied or spoken to us?required
No · Yes — they applied recently · Yes — they interviewed with us before · I don't know
Is there a relationship we should declare?
No · They're a close personal friend · They're a family member or partner · We have a financial or business relationship · Other — described below
Anything Else Recruiting Should Know
Referral Policyrequired
I've read the referral policy, including how and when any referral bonus is paid.

Who uses this template

In-house recruiting and talent acquisition teamsHR teams running a referral bonus schemeHiring managers sourcing through their own teamStartups hiring mostly through the networkPeople-ops teams at companies without an ATSAgencies and studios that hire on word of mouthAnyone replacing "forward me a CV" email threads with one intake

About this template

An employee referral form and a reference request form point in opposite directions, and it's worth being precise about which one you need. formformform's Reference Request Form is filled in by a candidate who is already applying: it collects three referees, their job titles, their contact details and the candidate's relationship to each of them, so a recruiter can go and ask about the candidate. This form is the other way round. The person filling it in is an employee, the person being described has not applied, and the point is to get them into the process at all.

That difference decides every field. A referral form has to identify two people rather than one, so the referrer's team and work email sit in their own section above the candidate's details. It asks how the referrer knows the candidate and for how long, because a referral from a former teammate of three years and a referral from someone met once at a conference are both worth having and are worth reading very differently. It asks what the referrer has actually seen the candidate do, in a required long-text field, since evidence is the only thing a referral adds to a CV. And it asks two questions no reference form needs: whether the candidate has agreed to be referred, and whether they are already somewhere in your pipeline — the first because contacting someone who hasn't agreed can put their current job at risk, the second because that's where referral bonus disputes come from.

formformform's other referral template, the Member Referral Form, sits in the membership category and does a different job again: a current member refers a colleague for membership, and the fields are member ID, company, title and which tier. Nothing about employment. This template is free with unlimited submissions, so a referral scheme doesn't cost per referral, and every submission lands in your dashboard and your inbox. If you run an applicant tracking system, send referrals onward with a webhook rather than rekeying them; if you don't, the dashboard is the pipeline.

12 form ideas you can build with this template

Engineering Referral Form

Let engineers refer former teammates with a portfolio or GitHub link and a description of work they saw first-hand.

Startup Employee Referral Form

A single referral intake for a company with no ATS, where every referral lands in one dashboard and a founder reads them all.

Referral Bonus Submission Form

Tie each referral to a requisition ID and a policy acknowledgement so payroll can pay the bonus without a dispute about eligibility.

Internal Mobility Referral Form

Adapt the relationship dropdown so managers can put forward colleagues from other teams for an internal move rather than an external hire.

Healthcare Staff Referral Form

Refer nurses and clinicians from a previous employer, using the evidence field to describe the setting and the caseload they worked.

Restaurant and Hospitality Referral Form

Let existing staff refer cooks, servers and managers they've worked shifts with, with availability captured in the free-text field.

Retail Store Staff Referral Form

Collect store-level referrals with the referrer's location in the team field, so district managers can route them.

Agency Freelancer Referral Form

Refer contractors and freelancers a team has worked with before, with a link to their portfolio and a note on what they're best at.

Graduate Programme Referral Form

Let employees refer people they studied with, using the "we studied together" relationship option and the how-long-known field.

Warehouse and Logistics Referral Form

A short referral intake for high-volume hourly hiring, where shift availability goes in the anything-else field.

Executive Referral Form

Capture senior referrals where the conflict-of-interest declaration and the confidentiality of the approach matter most.

Alumni Employee Referral Form

Let former colleagues be referred back in, with the pipeline question catching anyone who already interviewed with you before.

What's included

Separate sections for the referrer and the candidate, so it's always clear who is answering

A required "how do you know this person" dropdown that distinguishes a former teammate from a friend of a friend

A required evidence field asking what the referrer has seen the candidate do, not what they think of them

An optional "where wouldn't they fit" field that makes honest referrals easier to give

A required consent question — the candidate has agreed, or recruiting waits before making contact

A pipeline question that surfaces existing applicants before a bonus is promised

An optional conflict-of-interest declaration for friends, family and business relationships

The candidate's phone number ships optional, because it isn't the referrer's to hand over

Free with unlimited submissions — no per-referral or per-seat pricing

How to create an employee referral form

1
Click "Use this template" to load the employee referral form into your free formformform account.
2
Link your referral policy in the opening paragraph, and edit the policy checkbox to name it — if you don't have a written policy yet, delete that field rather than asking people to agree to something that doesn't exist.
3
Decide whether referrals are tied to open roles: keep the requisition ID field if the bonus is, and leave it optional so people can still refer someone when nothing is posted.
4
Delete the employee ID field unless payroll genuinely needs it to pay the bonus — the work email already identifies the referrer.
5
Add conditional logic in the editor if you want the pipeline and conflict questions to appear only in certain cases; the template ships flat because the generator can't store branching.
6
Add an Upload field in the editor if you want CVs as files rather than the link field the template ships with.
7
Route submissions to recruiting with a webhook or an email notification, and reply to the referrer as well as the candidate — referrers who never hear back stop referring.

Best practices for your employee referral form

Ask for evidence, not praise. "Cut our monthly close from four days to one" tells a recruiter something; "hard-working and reliable" tells them the referrer likes this person. The required evidence field is the whole value of a referral.

Require the consent question and act on it. Referring someone who hasn't agreed can put their current job at risk, and "not yet

don't contact them" has to actually stop the outreach, not just be recorded.

Ask about the pipeline before you promise a bonus. Most policies exclude candidates who already applied, and finding that out at offer stage is how referral schemes lose people's trust.

Make the relationship question a declaration, not a filter. Friends and family referrals are fine as long as the referrer is kept out of the decision

hiding the relationship is what causes the problem.

Keep the candidate's phone number optional. It belongs to someone who hasn't applied yet, and a referrer shouldn't have to hand it over to make the referral.

Close the loop with the referrer. A one-line "we've reached out" or "not this time" is what keeps a referral scheme alive; silence is what kills it.

Publish what the bonus is and when it pays. Referral schemes fail on ambiguity far more often than on the amount

most policies pay after a retention period, so say which one.

Review who is referring whom before you scale the scheme. Referrals reproduce the network of the people you already employ, so a referral pipeline that is your only pipeline will narrow who you hire.

Ask the referrer what would make the candidate say yes. It's the one piece of intelligence a recruiter cannot get from a CV, and it's why the "anything else" field is worth keeping.

Frequently asked questions

How is this different from a reference request form?

The direction of travel. A reference request is filled in by a candidate who has already applied, listing referees so you can go and ask about them — that's formformform's Reference Request Form, with its three referee blocks. A referral form is filled in by your own employee about someone who hasn't applied at all, and its job is to get that person into the process. Different respondent, different subject, different next step.

Can the candidate upload their CV through this form?

Not on the template as generated — it collects a link to a LinkedIn profile, portfolio or personal site instead. formformform's editor does have a File Upload field, 2 MB per file and encrypted on encrypted forms; it just isn't part of the template generator's field set. Clone the template and add an Upload field if you'd rather receive the CV as a file. Bear in mind the referrer is submitting this, not the candidate, so a link is often the more realistic ask.

Should I require the candidate's phone number?

We'd leave it optional, and the template ships that way. The number belongs to someone who hasn't applied yet, and asking a referrer to hand it over puts them in an awkward position. Email plus the candidate's own consent is enough to make first contact.

What happens if the referrer says the candidate doesn't know yet?

Nothing, until they confirm. That's the point of making the consent question required with an explicit "please don't contact them" option — the referral sits in your pipeline, recruiting waits, and the referrer comes back when they've had the conversation. Treating that answer as a formality is how you cost someone their current job.

Can I tie referrals to specific open roles?

Yes — that's what the requisition or job posting ID field is for. Keep it optional even so, because the best referrals often arrive when nothing suitable is open, and a form that rejects them teaches people not to bother.

Does this form calculate or pay the referral bonus?

No. formformform has no payment or calculation fields, so this collects the referral and records that the referrer has read your policy — the bonus itself is paid through payroll or whatever you already use. That's also why the employee ID field exists and why it's optional: keep it only if payroll needs it to route the payment.

Can I send referrals straight into our ATS?

You can forward them, not sync them. Send each submission onward with a webhook or one of formformform's automations, so a referral lands wherever your recruiters actually work instead of waiting in a dashboard. Nothing here comes preconnected — you set the destination up once after cloning.

Do the conflict and pipeline questions appear only when relevant?

No, they're always visible. formformform's template generator writes every field flat, so no template ships with branching even though the editor supports it. Add the logic yourself after cloning if you'd rather these questions only appeared for certain answers.