In contrast to external hiring, internal recruitment is focused on filling vacancies from its existing workforce. When a job position is posted only through the company’s internal job posts, no external candidate can apply for that position. Internal recruitment is mostly used to fill positions where the duties and requirements are best suited for a candidate having an insider’s view and knowledge. The insider’s point of view and knowledge of an existing employee provides various advantages to an organization. But the advantages never come alone; they bring a few drawbacks with them. Knowing the advantages and disadvantages of internal job postings can help employers to avoid any pitfall in their internal hiring process.
Why employers prefer hiring through internal job postings
Employers prefer internal hiring as it provides them with some exclusive advantages that they cannot get from external hiring.
Better alignment with the company culture
Internal hiring is preferred as existing employees have a better understanding of how a company operates. They already know the products they have to sell and the tools they have to work with. Existing employees also understand a company’s culture, making it easy for employers and HR managers to hire them.
Existing employees will look for opportunities outside an organization and not within if they are planning to leave their organization within months. Hence, internal recruitment also helps employers to find candidates who are willing to find opportunities and invest more time of their careers in their companies.
Increased employee retention
Internal recruitment offers employees opportunities for growth and professional development. This helps employers to enhance employee engagement with their organization. Opportunities for professional development and enhanced engagement increases employee retention as they would not plan to leave an organization if they are finding means of growth constantly.
Reduced cost per hire
Costs per hire for internal recruitment if far less than that of eternal recruitment. Firstly, employers will not have to pay for any recruitment agency to access a vast talent pool to hire the best. Secondly, they will not have to invest any time and money for advertising job openings on any platform.
Employers already know the background of their existing employees. Hence, they also save costs on background checks that they have to perform while hiring any external candidates. Time and money invested in training a new employee are also saved with internal recruitment as existing employees are already aware of the tools they have to work with.
Shortened onboarding time
The time generally taken by new hires to get familiar with a company’s culture and its employees is a lot. Hence it increases new recruitment’s onboarding time. Internal candidates, on the other hand, know how a company operates and its products. Also, there are chances that they are already familiar with members of the new team, their roles, and new responsibilities. All these factors shorten onboarding time and boost productivity.
How HR managers recruit with internal job posting data
To leverage all the benefits mentioned above, employers and HR managers can develop various internal recruitment processes. No matter how different the process of individual employers is, the basic underlying process is always similar.
Develop a hiring strategy
Employers first create a team of people who would take hiring decisions. The team, depending on the role and job position, may include the leader of the team where an opening is available, HR personnel, and other higher authorities. They have to then develop a hiring funnel corresponding to the stages of the hiring process.
Write internal job postings
Once the hiring team is ready, the next step is to write internal job posts. Employers need to analyze internal job posting data to identify job duties and the required skill set to create an effective job post. They have to emphasize on the benefits that the selected employee would get and make them very clear on the job posts. This will help employers to attract all the qualified employees to apply for the opening.
Communicate the open position
When an effective job post and a hiring team are in place, employers have to communicate the company’s internal job posts to their employees. They can do this by having a separate web page for growth and development. Employers can upload all the necessary information on a single platform that can be accessed by all the employees with their credentials.
Screen candidates
The screening process should not be any less rigorous because the employees have an existing understanding of a company. Despite all the knowledge, understanding, and experience, employers screen candidates as they would do for any external recruitment.
Why a relying on internal job postings alone is not enough
Despite all the advantages that internal recruitment offers, there are certain limitations to it. Here are a few drawbacks:
Creates an inflexible culture
One of the most significant benefits of external recruitment is the availability of fresh talent and ideas. This fresh talent brings new perspectives to an organization that helps to create a flexible work culture. But internal recruitment reduces the chances of hiring fresh candidates, thereby creating an inflexible culture.
Increases unhealthy competition
Internal recruitment can impact team morale by increasing the competition and even jealousy among co-workers. Not everyone can take failure positively. Hence when employees lose a job opening to their colleagues, there are chances that they get jealous of them.
Leaves a gap in the existing workforce
Shifting employees from one department to another through internal hiring can leave a gap in the existing workforce. Let’s say an employee is best for his or her department, but due to an opportunity for growth, the employee will apply for a job opening in another department. When that employee moves to another department, employers will have to find someone who can take his or her place and work as efficiently as the previous employee. This will leave the workforce with a skills gap. Hence, employers will either have to announce another internal job post or hire someone externally.
How employers can overcome the limitations of internal job posting
As we have seen earlier, there are various disadvantages of internal recruitment. But, where there are challenges, there are always solutions to them. Employers can overcome internal hiring problems by taking a hybrid approach. They should not limit themselves to internal recruitment. Instead, they should also look for external candidates when a job position is not filled by internal recruitment. Using a hybrid approach will help employers always find the best talent and mitigate the limitations of internal recruitment.
Where job boards come into the picture
When employers adopt a hybrid approach to overcome internal hiring disadvantages, they would externally publish job positions that are not filled by existing employees. That’s where job boards armed with advanced job board technology can come into the picture and help employers find the best talent for their job posts. To scrap all such openings on thousands of employer websites, job boards need premium solutions. These premium solutions, such as Propellum’s Job Crawling tool, can crawl all the websites on the internet to quickly find all the latest job vacancies. Job boards can also use premium solutions such as Megawrap to automatically aggregate job information from employers’ websites and post them on their job boards.
