This is the reason why employee recommendation have far higher success rate.

Now someone just needs to tell companies that the way to reward those is with significant cash in hand.

I've had companies offer $500 for a referral, if that person took the job and stayed with the company for at least 6 months (this was for a position with a salary of ~50$ per hour).

In my experience, most halfway respectable companies already do?

500 bucks is IMO on the low side for an employee referral in the US if it's for software engineering... the amount of money you save the hiring team alone in recruiting efforts is often in the thousands of dollars, and they often stay longer and are often the best hires - not surprising if former colleagues they like are already there...

For roles I've worked, I've never seen less than $2k offered for a successfully recommended technical hire, both at startups and BigCos. Most places I've worked have offered around $5k.

I've never seen less than $5k, and for much needed roles it's usually at least $10k.

I think it just comes down to the quality of company.

True, but it costs you less if you just do it from minute 1 instead of letting them go through the process.