Eqo Refer Greenhouse Integration: Automate SMS Referrals, Eligibility Checks, and Payouts

Eqo Refer's integration with Greenhouse connects a text-first employee referral experience to your applicant tracking system so referrals move from frontline employees into Greenhouse automatically, with eligibility checks, duplicate detection, and automated payout routing. The result is a single, auditable referral pipeline that reduces manual admin work and keeps referrers informed entirely via SMS—no app downloads required. This article explains what the integration actually does, which teams and situations benefit most, measurable advantages in time and accuracy, implementation considerations, data flow and privacy controls, and practical adoption tactics to maximize referral volume and program ROI.

What the Eqo Refer + Greenhouse integration does: it captures referrals via SMS, validates against your referral policy, pushes candidate records into Greenhouse, flags duplicates and exclusions, tracks referral status, and automates bonus calculations and payroll handoffs. The platform keeps referrers updated through text notifications and provides admins a dashboard that eliminates spreadsheets and manual payout reconciliation.

How the integration works — operational flow

• Referral capture Frontline employees send a candidate referral via SMS in ~15 seconds — candidate name, contact, and the job or hiring event tag are captured.
• Policy checks Eqo runs eligibility rules, exclusion lists, duplicate searches, re-hire windows, and other company-specific validations before creating a record.
• Greenhouse sync Validated referrals are pushed into Greenhouse as candidate profiles or leads, with referral metadata and source tracking intact.
• Status updates As the candidate advances in Greenhouse, Eqo tracks stages and sends SMS updates to the referrer about interviews, offers, and hires.
• Payout automation At payout time Eqo re-validates employment status, confirms eligibility, calculates the correct bonus, and initiates payroll handoff.

Who benefits most from this integration

• Large hourly/frontline workforces Retail, hospitality, manufacturing, and healthcare teams with distributed, mobile-first employees who don't use corporate apps.
• TA and HR teams using Greenhouse Teams that already rely on Greenhouse for candidate workflows and need a reliable, auditable ingestion path for referrals.
• Companies with complex referral policies Organizations that require eligibility checks, exclusion rules, duplicate detection, or multi-stage bonus amounts.
• Operations and payroll teams Groups that benefit from automated payout calculations, headcount validation, and payroll integration.

Administrative challenges and how Eqo addresses them

Frontline employee experience is intentionally simple: no app downloads, no portals—just text. Employees submit referrals by SMS, receive confirmation and status updates via text, and can access a mobile dashboard over SMS to view leaderboard position or payout status. This low-friction approach increases participation because it matches how frontline teams already communicate.

Top Eqo features that matter after Greenhouse integration

• Text-first referrals Quick SMS capture removes adoption friction for hourly and mobile employees.
• Automated eligibility and duplicate checks Ensures only valid referrals reach Greenhouse, reducing downstream cleanup.
• Payout automation and payroll handoff Calculates bonuses, confirms active employment, and routes payments to payroll systems.
• Leaderboards and gamification Automated recognition and scoring increase engagement and repeat referrals.
• Hiring event sourcing Extend referrals to event-specific campaigns, capturing candidates and source data for Greenhouse.

ROI example — measurable time and accuracy gains: consider a company with 5,000 frontline employees that processes 2,000 referral entries annually. Manual intake, validation and spreadsheet reconciliation can consume 200 admin hours and produce reconciliation errors that delay payouts. With Eqo + Greenhouse, intake is instant, validation is automated, and payout reconciliation is reduced to an automated audit—conservatively saving 150–180 admin hours per year and eliminating many payout exceptions that cost additional headcount time.

Implementation checklist and typical timeline

• Pre-launch: policy mapping Document referral rules, exclusion lists, re-hire windows, and bonus tiers for configuration.
• Integration setup Connect Eqo to Greenhouse (API credentials), map fields, and configure payroll handoff parameters.
• Pilot testing Run a controlled pilot with a subset of stores/regions to validate rule behavior and SMS flows.
• Training and text campaigns Launch targeted SMS campaigns to educate frontline teams and kickstart referrals.
• Go-live and monitoring Monitor ingestion into Greenhouse, track KPIs, and iterate on messaging and policy as needed.

Common implementation pitfalls and quick fixes

• Pitfall: Unmapped Greenhouse fields Fix: Audit required candidate fields and ensure Eqo maps source metadata into the correct Greenhouse attributes.
• Pitfall: Overly restrictive eligibility rules Fix: Start with conservative checks, then tighten based on observed abuse or policy needs.
• Pitfall: Low frontline awareness Fix: Use short, frequent SMS campaigns and leaderboards to boost program visibility.
• Pitfall: Payroll timing mismatches Fix: Coordinate payroll cutoffs and configure Eqo’s payout schedule to align with payroll runs.

Privacy and data flow considerations: Eqo syncs only the referral and candidate metadata required for hiring and payout tracking into Greenhouse and to payroll systems. Data handling follows standard data minimization—only necessary attributes are exchanged. Companies should confirm retention policies, map where PII resides, and validate that both Eqo and Greenhouse configurations comply with internal privacy and security requirements. Eqo provides a privacy policy and Greenhouse support documentation to assist auditors.

KPIs to track after launch

Common questions about Eqo Refer + Greenhouse

Quick comparison: Spreadsheets vs Generic Referral Apps vs Eqo + Greenhouse

Adoption best practices and campaign ideas

• Kickoff SMS series Send short, targeted messages during launch weeks explaining how to refer and highlighting quick success stories.
• Leaderboards and recognition Use automated leaderboards to spotlight top referring stores or employees and reward consistent contributors.
• Event-focused campaigns Promote hiring events via SMS and capture event-specific referrals that map to Greenhouse sourcing.
• Measure and iterate Track KPIs weekly for the first 90 days and refine messaging, thresholds, and policy configurations as you learn.