Categories / Specialisms

The Prefio model has categories at its heart and it is important that employers and referrers understand what we are aiming to achieve with these categories.

From a referrers perspective - as part of the sign-up process of a new referrer we ask you to specify the categories in which you have referral expertise.  So it's important to understand that we aren't asking "in what specialism / category do you work".

A couple of examples might help to clarify.  Firstly, if you are a recent graduate civil engineer and just starting out your career in construction then it's possible that you really only know people within the construction "category" (although it might be that your friends from university have gone to work in other areas of the built environment in which case your network already extends beyond your strict work specialism).  Secondly, somebody who is let's say a senior and very experienced corporate real estate player (Director of CRE in a major global corporation) - has probably through the course of their career got to know people in most or all specialisms - so they should select all of those categories.

From an employers perspective - our categories are more closely aligned with the question "what specialism does this particular role fall within or would I like to attract candidates from".  But we do appreciate that in defining these categories we have had to create false demarcations that don't always apply in the real world.  So for instance if the role is inhouse corporate real estate it might well be appropriate to seek the views of referrers with expertise in both corporate real estate and say asset management.  But do avoid a completely untargeted approach - for instance (unless there was good reason) it probably wouldn't be appropriate to send that opportunity out to referrers in the real estate legal category.

So a bit of judgement is required - if in doubt then do get in touch with us.  The categories are: