This startup is betting job seekers will pay to land a job

Hansheng Liu's first attempt to find a job through the startup Refer didn't work out.

It was this past fall, and the recent computer science grad from the University of Illinois said he hadn't done enough to beef up his résumé. Liu then spent part of the winter building a website and a backend server so he could gain more experience.

That's when he went back to Refer, a so-called reverse recruiter for tech workers, where job seekers, not employers, pay a fee when they land a role.

Refer uses an AI agent to identify potential matches and introduce candidates to hiring managers and recruiters. If you get a job, you're charged 20% of your first month's salary.

The second time he tried Refer, Liu said his more robust résumé did the trick. He requested introductions to about a half-dozen companies, resulting, Liu said, in four interviews.

One of them was with a Bay Area firm that eventually hired him. So, when it came time to pay what Refer founder Andre Hamra calls a "success fee," Liu said he didn't mind.

"They helped me land a job," he said. "It's so worth it."

That kind of outcome is what Hamra is betting can reshape recruiting. The San Francisco startup, which recently raised a previously unannounced $7.5 million seed funding round on top of an earlier $2.5 million round, wants to give job seekers an agent that introduces them to employers after determining both sides are interested.

Refer is one of several companies using the reverse recruiter model. Hamra said the approach flips traditional recruiting, where recruiters earn a fee from employers when they fill a role.

"Their product is the candidate," Hamra said of recruiters. "Our product is the companies, the jobs. Our client is a candidate."

The approach comes as AI is remaking both sides of the hiring process. Companies have complained about AI-generated résumés that can feel indistinguishable from each other and bots that flood open roles with applications. Job seekers, meanwhile, often say the hiring process has become more impersonal because they get ghosted or never hear back at all.

An AI talent agent

Employers on the platform choose the roles they'll accept referrals for. Job seekers on Refer answer questions about their experience, desired salary, preferred location, the size of company they're looking for, any visa requirements, and what they want in a role. After both a candidate and an employer express interest in a match, Refer's AI agent, Lia, introduces them by email.

More than half of users secure an interview within 24 hours of an introduction, Hamra said. He compares the company's AI agent to a human agent that a celebrity or professional athlete might have — someone whose job is to spot opportunities.

Refer users can request up to five introductions to firms per day, and once the agent makes an intro, employers have three business days to respond. If a candidate rejects a proposed match, they can explain why, so the AI incorporates that feedback into future recommendations.

The platform has facilitated more than 5,000 interviews and grown to roughly 2,000 employers and about 7,000 open jobs, Hamra said. It recently expanded beyond its early focus on software engineers from Stanford and other top universities to US tech workers broadly.

Hamra, 29, said he started the company in mid-2024 after becoming frustrated with how difficult it was for talented people to find work that matched their abilities. He said he'd been helping people find jobs since he was a teenager in his native Brazil. Later, while in business school at Stanford, he put up flyers offering to help people find jobs. The demand he saw led him to create Refer.

A different way to get noticed

Refer's model stood out to Sam Fankuchen, founder and CEO of Golden, which develops AI software for nonprofits to manage volunteers and donors. Golden has hired multiple employees through Refer and plans to do so again, he said.

"The kinds of candidates who join their service are so intentional about finding the right career fit that they don't mind absorbing the cost of the transaction," he said.

By contrast, he said some candidates working with traditional recruiters may prioritize maximizing compensation and changing jobs every couple of years.

Arjun Bakhale, founder of GreenLight, a software startup focused on clinical trials in healthcare, said he used Refer while a student to get an internship through an introduction to a startup's CEO.

Bakhale said he preferred that approach, despite the fee, because with the standard job-search process, "There's a good chance that the application just hits a brick wall."

The introduction to someone on the inside gave him confidence that he'd have a better shot at landing the role, he said.

"I know for a fact that the CEO, or someone higher up in the company calling shots, has seen my profile," Bakhale said.

Liu, the Illinois grad, said he would use Refer again, though he would like to see more companies join the platform — something Hamra said the company plans to use the new funding to help accomplish.

Still, after months of applying to roles on his own, Liu said Refer delivered what a traditional job search often didn't: a direct introduction. For the role he accepted, that meant getting connected to someone in the HR department.

"That is pretty useful," he said.

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