Bounty payment

Situations

On hire

If a hire is made, the bounty is paid to the referrer over a period called the payment window.

The payment window is characterized by a number of installments, the percentage of the bounty that is paid out per installment and the installment duration. Currently, we use 3 installments that pay out 50%, 25% and 25% of the bounty respectively with a duration of 30 days, which makes the payment window 90 days.

The payment window starts on the start date of the candidate, as indicated by the client when marking the candidate as ‘hired’. When a candidate leaves during the payment window, the next installments are not paid out to the referrer but instead refunded to the client. If the candidate leaves the company before the first installment, the whole bounty is refunded to the client.

To be eligible for such a refund, the client needs to mark the candidate as ‘left prematurely’. At this time, the ‘premature leaving’ challenge window starts. During this challenge window (currently set at 14 days), the referrer has time to protest and provide proof that the candidate is in fact still employed at the company. In case the referrer decides to do so, a Kleros court case is initiated that needs to decide whether the client or the referrer is correct.

No hire

In case the client decides to stop hiring (e.g. because they have a hiring freeze or found a candidate through another channel), the client is refunded the bounty after the ‘no hire challenge window’ has expired. During this challenge window, anyone can protest the refunding of the bounty by submitting evidence that the company did hire one of the candidates that was referred through Job Protocol. If a challenge is filed, the case is sent to Kleros where both the ‘prosecutor’ and the client can submit any evidence to make their case. If the prosecutor wins and the Kleros court indeed judges that the client made a hire through Job Protocol, the bounty is split between the ‘challenger’ and the referrer.

Holding

In case a candidate was transferred or held on to, the bounty is kept locked until these candidates are either rejected or hired.

A note on challenging

As mentioned in the sections above, there are multiple situations where the decisions of the client to get a refund of the bounty can be challenged.

The client is incentivized to act fairly because 1) it’s unlikely they’ll get the bounty back in case it’s being rightfully challenged, but more importantly 2) because challenges happen out in the open on-chain and the conclusion of the dispute is also published on-chain, it will severely damage the reputation of the client in the case they get caught. This reputation protection is further enhanced by requiring the hiring manager of a role to be publicly known.