Your Guide to Internal Recruitment: Why, How, When + Tips

An organization has a few recruitment strategies to consider when looking for new talents. Not every position requires the same type of talent. Therefore, recruiters need to understand which recruiting method works best for them.

You can find the following among the most common internal and external recruitment methods:

• Direct advertising
• Referrals
• Promotions and transfers
• Internships
• Word of mouth
• Job boards
• Social media recruiting
• Recruitment agencies

However, it is a great idea to ponder internal hiring before considering all the external hiring methods. More often than you can imagine, the perfect candidate already works for your company. If you recruit internally, you can save yourself from going through all the hassle other methods require. 

Let us start by learning the definition of internal recruitment. By saying internal recruitment, we mean filling job vacancies from the existing talent pool within a company. One of the benefits of internal recruitment is that it is usually a fast and convenient way to fill a position. 

However, internal and external recruitment are more similar than they are different. The processes and methods involved are very much the same, except that external recruiting focuses on candidates outside a corporate.

There are several types of internal recruitment. Among the most common methods, we can find the following:

📍 Internal promotions

This method is one of the most popular internal hiring processes. A promotion gives an existing employee the chance to step up their career. Most of the time, they also obtain a pay raise and increased responsibilities.

Set a clear promotion policy to avoid giving your employees the impression that you have unfair internal hiring practices. Furthermore, you will likely need to train and upskill 

📍 Reorganization

Another purpose of internal recruitment is moving people to reorganize the current staff. Reorganization is an internal recruitment method in which someone goes to a different role with similar responsibilities. 

For example, you can reorganize your company by moving a supervisor from the production area to the logistics area. 

📍 Transfers

When multinational companies recruit internally, they sometimes move staff members from one country to another. 

Transfers are an internal recruitment process that helps companies implement new methodologies and even managerial changes when opening new offices. 

An example of this internal recruitment method is moving an employee to an office branch closer to their city to avoid commuting long distances while maintaining the same position and obligations. 

📍 Role changes

Unlike a promotion, a role change is usually an internal hiring method that distributes existing talent laterally among the company. Sometimes, you will notice that one employee fits a different role better. For example, moving a social media assistant to a sales position.

Naturally, no method is perfect. Consider the advantages of internal recruitment as well as its disadvantages before making a decision.

You will find out that more often than not, the benefits of internal recruitment will far outweigh the drawbacks. However, keep those pesky areas in mind to make the best decision.

✅ Advantages of internal recruitment

• Boosting internal morale

One of the reasons why many people choose to work for a company is their growth opportunities. A company posting jobs internally often shows that it values its employees and would like to see them grow professionally.

Employees often feel motivated to do their best when they think there is a higher chance they will obtain a raise. That is why internal recruitment is an effective HR tool to boost internal morale.

• Saving time onboarding

Another advantage of internal recruiting is how much more streamlined the hiring process is. You will save valuable time on the onboarding process.

For jobs that use internal recruitment, employees will not have to go through an extensive training period as they are already familiar with the internal process and the corporate culture. Moreover, an internally recruited employee has insider knowledge and is familiar with the team and corporate culture.

• Decreasing employee turnover rate

There are many reasons why an employee quits, and one of them is the lack of chances to move upward or expand their expertise into other areas. With more employees quitting—-a higher turnover rate—-comes the raises in administrative costs and the decreases in efficiency. 

As an HR manager, you have to consider the economical benefits of internal recruitment. Therefore, companies can assure a long trustworthy relationship with their employees by recruiting internally.

• Making the organization more inclusive

A strong internal recruitment policy can help you hurdle one of the biggest obstacles in modern HR management. Yes, internal recruitment does not change your existing talent pool. However, it gives existing employees a chance for new positions, knowledge, and most importantly, to grow in their careers and close the different inequality gaps that exist.

🚫 Disadvantages of internal recruitment

As one might expect, no method is perfect. Among the disadvantages of recruiting internally, these are the most common ones:

• No fresh perspective

A company might limit itself by exclusively recruiting internally. The lack of new personnel makes it hard for the company to come up with new ideas and perspectives. 

If a company still wants to maintain fresh ideas while posting jobs internally, it needs to make sure that its current staff keeps preparing and learning. Constant education is a great way to keep an inflow of ground-breaking ideas. 

• A limited candidate pool

Some positions will require very specific skills. However, your options might be too narrow if you restrain yourself and only recruit internally, especially in growing companies. This means that sometimes you will not have people with the required skills internally. 

Therefore, the need for extra training and education of the internal talent pool becomes a disadvantage of internal recruitment.

• Not having enough employees

When you are recruiting internally, the number of your employees doesn’t change and you might still need to hire externally if you wish to expand the scale of your business. For smaller companies, internal hiring can become a big obstacle, as there are not enough employees to cover all the required job positions.

It is a valuable idea to look at the different internal recruitment strategies if you have decided that you want to give your current workforce a chance to work in a different position. 

Once again, keep in mind that the “internal vs external recruitment” debate mostly focuses on where will you look for your candidates. Therefore, the recruitment process remains similar in both cases. 

🔎 Set up an internal recruitment process

The first step you need to take is to come up with your internal hiring process. Decide who will be part of your hiring committee. Moreover, write down a clear and just internal recruitment policy. The more detailed you get this step, the fewer problems you will face in the future. 

🔎 Create a job posting

Come up with a specific description of the experience, education, and skills required for the positions before you start posting jobs internally. You will help candidates to have realistic expectations regarding their eligibility for the job. 

🔎 Share the job posting and encourage employees to apply

There are several ways to do internal job advertising. Aside from posting jobs internally, you can get your internal managers to recommend employees, send internal emails, post on your company’s communication platform, etc. 

Make sure to give your employees a nudge once they are aware of the job opening. Tell your managers how important internal recruitment is for the company and ask them to encourage their qualified subordinates.

🔎 Screen and interview candidates

Even though one of the benefits of internal recruitment is that you already know your employees, you still have to review the applications and interview the ones qualified for the job. Ensure you have a standard method to interview all candidates to guarantee fairness and equality. 

🔎 Provide constructive feedback

Do not just send everyone back to their regular positions after you chose the candidate you want to recruit internally. You need to explain to everyone else why they did not get the job and help them to develop their careers. Otherwise, you might affect their morale and trust.

You can consider the need for this awkward conversation a disadvantage of internal recruitment. However, you can always find a way to deliver bad news in a good way. Constructive feedback can motivate your employees to improve for future opportunities. Be empathetic! 

Internal recruitment can be more complicated than you may imagine. There are several advantages and a few disadvantages of internal recruitment you need to consider. To guarantee a higher chance of succeeding when posting jobs internally, follow these tips:

🎯 Create an internal talent pool

You can keep track of your human talent’s skills to avoid wasting their time when using an internal recruitment method. Such a system helps you filter and validate candidates. Whether you are using HR software or manually creating a database.

🎯 Be clear with your internal recruitment policy

It is best if employees are well informed of the internal recruitment policy. You should communicate the eligibility requirements as soon as you notify them about the job. 

For example, tenure, work performance, or geographic location are vital requirements for some job positions. Whatever the needs are, make sure you clearly state them when posting jobs internally. It will help you avoid miscommunication errors that would otherwise lead to discontent. 

🎯 Be fair during the process

Fairness is a key quality across the entire internal hiring process, especially if you want to enjoy the advantages of internal recruitment rather than suffering from its possible shortcomings. 

The last thing you probably expect is that the internal hiring process angers your employees and ruins the atmosphere in the workplace. To avoid favoritism or nepotism, invite people from different departments to assist with the selection procedure.

🎯 Prevent talent hoarding

In some companies, managers tend to discourage people from looking forward to other internal positions for career growth. Most of the time, it is due to economic restraints. However, with the passing of time, employees start to get discouraged and tend to leave the company - increasing the turnover cost.

HR managers should focus on creating a fair internal recruitment policy that provides good opportunities for everyone in the company. 

--- Originally written by Roger Rene Ortega Figueroa ---