Originally Posted By: drakino
I've found from my experience that even with a friend/past coworker inside, a company tends to use their recruiters. The benefit of the friend (or multiple friends) is that their voice can carry more weight at the post interview roundtable.

I think this depends entirely on the company. We have a referral bonus, here ($2K, if the person is hired), and when we have an open req, people pass on names & resumes of their recommendations directly to the hiring manager. The hiring manager will usually forward the info they get to the HR department, just to ensure that it's retained in the database, but will still initiate contact, themselves. HR may get the job posted on the corporate website, and sent out to a few recruiters, but that's about the extent of their involvement, near as I can tell.