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When openings are created in a company, recruiters generally go about advertising on every possible platform in the pursuit of talent. But before you bombard every medium with your, “We are Hiring” adverts, step back and rethink your recruitment process.
Which are the most lucrative recruiting resources? Should you be looking for talent internally or is external recruitment your preferred approach? This is the biggest dilemma faced by maximum recruiters as there are pros and cons associated with each source. If you don’t want to rely on either source exclusively, weigh your options to ensure that your recruitment process increases your conversion rate.
What is Internal Recruitment?
Internal recruitment is the process of filling up open positions within the organization from its current workforce. Instead of releasing the positions into the job market, the HR department chooses to advertise the vacancy internally for the current employees to apply for it.
Types/Methods of Internal Recruitment
- Promotions
- Transfers
- Temporary to a permanent position
- Part-time to a full-time position
- Employee referrals
Process of Internal Recruitment
- Write a detailed job ad focusing on the job role and its responsibilities, the skills required, and the experience sought.
- Announce the job opportunity as a ‘News’ in an email.
- Update the Careers/Jobs section of your company intranet.
- If you don’t have an intranet, post the job on your company website.
- Put up the job ad on the company noticeboard.
- Wherever your job ad is posted, make sure that the ad clearly states whom the employees should contact if they want to apply for the role.
Advantages of Internal Recruitment
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With internal recruiting, you save all the time you otherwise spend on identifying, attracting and engaging candidates. You have instant access to your candidates and their track records, they are already a culture fit and also pre-screened for the position, and the department is already acquainted with the candidate!
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Every new hire takes some time to get acquainted with new people and processes but an internal hire is already familiar with the company’s policies, practices and people. All they need to know about is their new role and its responsibilities.
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Internal recruitment is cost-effective because unlike external recruitment it does not involve job postings, resume screening, filtering relevant resumes, communicating with shortlisted candidates, and conducting interviews. You simply need to narrow down on the most suitable candidates and hire the right fit to fill the open role.
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Internal promotions send out a message that that you value your staff and are willing to invest in their career growth. Giving your current employees more opportunities for career advancement by changing their roles will work to boost their morale and motive them to do better in their new roles.
Disadvantages of Internal Recruitment
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While internal recruitment does save a lot of your time, energy and resources, it is not without drawbacks. It can rust the company’s culture because when employees get too comfortable with the processes and procedures, they are unable to spot operational inefficiencies and struggle to innovate.
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Just because a current employee seems like a perfect fit for a new role and has all the desired qualities, does not mean he/she won’t need training. With external recruitment, you get a candidate with all the required skills, experience and attributes that allow him to be productive immediately. But, an in-house recruit is not likely to take on all the responsibilities and perform a role efficiently from day 1.
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Your organization may be having several qualified employees for certain positions, but they may not be a perfect match for an open position. For instance, if a recently created role is fairly innovative and new for your business, then your current employees may not be able to fulfil the responsibilities of this role. For this role, you would need someone with new ideas and skills.
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Employees who have been considered for a promotion for a certain role could feel resentful if an external candidate or their own colleague is hired for that role eventually. Also, managers are reluctant to give away their star performers as losing them would impact the entire team’s performance. In fact, certain managers would also go the extent of hindering the process of transfer or promotion and this can lead to hostility at work.
What is External Recruitment?
External recruitment is the process of filling open roles of the company with applicants, outside the current employee pool.
Types/Methods of External Recruitment
- Advertising
- Recruiters
- Top executive search firms
- Employment agencies
- Event recruiting
- Best professional associations
- Special career events
- Walk-ins
- Job fairs
- Open houses for on the spot job offers
- Internships
- Online recruiting
Process of External Recruitment
- Posting the job positions
- Closing the posting
- Analyzing and then shortlisting the applicant candidates
- Scheduling a preliminary test for all shortlisted candidates
- Setting up interviews with candidates
- Conducting interviews
- Selecting candidates and carrying out reference checks
- Offering employment to selected candidates
Advantages of External Recruitment
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External recruitment attracts a variety of candidates with different capabilities and skill sets, thereby increasing your chances of landing maximum suitable candidates.
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A creative external recruitment campaign enables the recruiter to tap top choice candidates. When automated with an applicant tracking system, the external recruitment process expands your reach, attracts the right candidates, keeps them engaged and makes it much easier to bring them onboard.
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External recruitment greatly increases the possibility of identifying and attracting fresh talent. This talent comes onboard with new skills and business ideas that have the ability to take your business to the next level.
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External recruitment attracts a variety of applications from candidates with varying work experiences. This gives you easy access to candidates who’ve gained knowledge from working for different companies. Hiring these candidates would mean gaining insights into new and innovative business practices and knowing other aspects of your competitor’s businesses.
Disadvantages of External Recruitment
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The external recruitment process can attract candidates who are not relevant or worthy of the open position. Since maximum candidates are total strangers to the recruiter, the risk of brining a misfit onboard cannot be ruled out completely.
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The external recruitment process involves posting jobs on different platforms, coming up with compelling JDs, communicating with candidates, screening resumes, conducting interviews and coming up with an irresistible offer. All of these aspects of the recruitment process are time-consuming, tedious, complicated, and costly.
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The biggest downside of an external recruitment drive is the time taken to fill open positions. Recruiters receive hundreds of resumes for every open position and screening them takes up a lot of time. However, using an applicant tracking system can take this entire screening time from hours to minutes and narrow down your talent tool to include only qualified candidates in a jiffy.
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It is possible that your new hires may not be able to adapt to their new working environment and break the ice with their new team members. When recruiters fail to hire a culture fit, new hires often leave the job and need to be replaced, requiring recruiters to hunt for new candidates.
Whether you are recruiting internally or externally, automating your recruitment process will ensure that you bring only the best candidates onboard much faster. Sign up for Jobsoid’s free trial today and save your time, money and resources as you build an effective and efficient hiring process.
Have you looked within your own ranks first?
You should do!
And here’s why…
The 5 Pros of Internal Recruitment
1. It’s quicker.
It takes (a lot) less time to hire someone from within and the whole process is a lot more certain…
- You’ll know pretty much everything you need to know about them already.
- They’ll also understand the company, its values, technologies and processes.
- You’ll already know that they are a good cultural fit.
- You can approach them directly.
- You may even already have someone in mind for the role.
This means you’ll spend less time advertising the job, sifting through CVs, interviewing candidates and all of those other niggly tasks that come with external recruitment.
There are other ways to speed up your recruitment process – click here to check them out.
2. It’s cheaper.
Obviously, because the entire process is quicker (and time is money) you’ll save money too.
You also won’t have to pay for job advertising and agency fees etc.
And inside hires actually cost less money in general; they won’t get the dreaded counter-offer and they’re less likely to turn down the role or haggle on the salary (promotions are positive and exciting)!
3. It’s less risky.
You actually know this person; you can get managers and staff to vouch for them and their record will speak for itself.
This, of course, takes away a lot of the risk of hiring the wrong person.
Think about it; people will lie on their CV and in interviews, they will be on their best behaviour and may exaggerate their commitment and passion about the role, however, with an internal recruit you actually know all of these things about them.
4. It’ll improve your employer brand.
When you do come to hiring someone external, showing hard evidence that your company are willing to offer opportunities for progression is a real selling point.
People are always looking to the future and if you can show them that it’s full of chances to grow, with your business, then they’re much more likely to want to join you.
For some more tips on boosting your employer brand, click here to check out our recent post on the topic.
5. It’ll boost your employee engagement.
Similarly, your own staff will feel more valued, engaged and happier if you offer them opportunities to progress at your company and reward their hard work and loyalty.
If you don’t give them an opportunity to grow, they’ll probably move on pretty quickly (more recruitment costs for you).
And the happier your staff are – the happier your customers will be – believe me.
Click here to read more about how to engage your employees.
The 5 Cons of Internal Recruitment
Of course (unfortunately) there is always a downside, so let’s balance things out a bit…
6. It could cause internal conflict.
If you open up a job to internal employees, especially if you already have someone in mind, it can have a negative impact on morale.
Other employees who are interested in applying could end up feeling shunned if their application isn’t taken seriously or if someone else gets the job.
They may feel that it’s ‘favouritism’ and that their own hard work and skills aren’t valued.
This might all seem a little fickle to you, but if the morale of the team suffers, it can really impact your whole business and you could even lose staff because of it.
Make sure you’re giving everyone an equal chance and that you consider the consequences before promoting someone (especially if they’re not well liked…)
7. They may not be respected by others.
In a similar vein, if you’re hiring for a management position, it is really important to consider the applicant’s current position within the team.
Are they well liked? And respected? Are they too close to some and not close enough to others? Will a management position be so much of a leap that no one will take them seriously?
Sometimes, people are skilled enough to do a job but simply aren’t respected, liked or well-known enough to pull it off.
The ability to work with others whilst earning their trust and respect is an essential trait of a good leader.
To find out more about hiring a great leader (internally or externally) – click here.
8. Sometimes, you just need a breath of fresh air.
Sometimes, you need to bring a new person into a company to shake things up a bit, bringing fresh ideas and insights to the table.
This is especially important if you think things at your company are stagnating a little and that the morale is a little slow and people seem unmotivated – promoting the internal candidate probably won’t change that.
Bringing in someone who can inspire others could be the breath of fresh air your team need to get back into their groove.
9. You’re essentially hiring two people.
Of course, often, you’ll also have to hire a second person to fill the promoted person’s job.
So you will essentially be hiring two people that you’ll have to train up, instead of one.
If the position is more senior, then it could be worth it, because the internal hire will have gained valuable experience and knowledge throughout their time working for the company – all of which will speed up their training process and make them a great addition to the senior team.
However if the role is roughly at the same level, you might wonder whether it’s simpler and quicker to just hire one, external person.
10. You’re limiting your options.
At the end of the day, recruitment is a numbers game and if you choose to only advertise a vacancy internally then then you are limiting your options.
You just don’t know whether the perfect person is somewhere out there, just waiting to be plucked.
Is it worth the risk?
What do we think?
Internal recruitment really works well, if you have some great talent within your business right now.
But, as you can see from the negatives above, there are a few traps you could fall into.
Just make sure you consider every avenue and every potential issue before making any snap decisions.
Recruiter Pro Tip
Don’t hire someone internally, just because it’s cheaper, easier and quicker, short term.
If you have any doubts that someone is right for the role (for example, perhaps you decide they’re not great, but a promotion will ‘buck up their ideas’) seriously reconsider those doubts before making a decision.
It’s just not worth making a mistake that could cost you thousands of pounds.
If you’d like more advice on making your recruitment drive more efficient and less costly, then please feel free to subscribe to this blog – HERE.
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Hope you found the post useful!