Advantages and disadvantages of internal recruitment

What is recruitment?                                                                  

The process of actively seeking out, finding, and hiring candidates for a specific position or job is known as recruitment.

                                                                                                      

The term "recruitment" refers to the entire hiring process, from the initial interview to the employee's integration into the company.

Candidates for the recruitment process can be found internally as well as externally.

Internal recruitment

Internal recruiting is the process of filling vacancies within the organization from its existing workforce.

External recruiting, on the other hand, is when a company looks for candidates from outside the company to fill vacancies.

There are several types of internal recruitment methods.

* Promotions

* Transfers

* Confirmations

* Referrals are some of them.

Advantages of internal recruitment

Hiring a person who is already a part of same team and knows the culture and policies is always an added value to the organization.

Also it is more efficient than recruiting externally.

Let's see some of these advantages:

Reduce time to hire

When hiring externally, hiring team will have to find candidates either through sourcing or job postings. Then they'll have to evaluate them, and persuade them to join if all goes well. This takes a lot of time.

On the other hand internal candidates are already part of your workplace, so the time you need to find and engage those candidates is much lesser than the external candidates. It’s also easier to assess internal candidates because:

> They know the culture well.

> Their track record can easily be accessed.

> They might not needed to be trained like others.

All these reduces the time that might have to spent when hiring from outside.

Reduces the time takes to get started

Internal persons know the company culture ,policies and practices. Also the are familiar with their team and may know their new roles, its content and contexts as well. So not like the externals who need some time to adjust to their new role, internal hires are quicker to onboard.

            

Cost less

External hiring takes a lot of cost rather than internal hiring. This is because when hiring from within, you usually don’t need to:

• Post ads on job boards. - Easy to inform internal candidates about job openings through company’s internal newsletter. 
• Subscribe to resume databases.- Can ask managers about their team members or look into your HRIS to find employees who might fit in.
• Pay for backgrounds checks.- You may already have conducted background checks on internal candidates when you first hired them. And, you know if they’re in good standing based on their manager’s input or employee records.

Boost employee motivation

Promoting from within sends a message to employees that you value them and want to invest in them. 

Giving employees more opportunities to advance their careers, or even allowing them to move to other similar-level positions that may interest them, is good for morale: employees who change roles develop professionally, and others know that similar opportunities may be available in the future. This contributes to the development of a trusting culture, which improves employee engagement and retention.

 

Disadvantages of internal recruitment

Despite above all merits internal hiring can have some disadvantages as well.

Here are some of them:

It leaves gaps in existing workforce

When someone is promoted to fill an open position, the person's previous position becomes vacant. This could result in a series of moves and promotions that disrupt your company's operations. You may need to use external recruitment in addition to your internal hire in the end.

Employees and managers might be resentful on the selection

.

Other than the selected candidate, employees who were considered for the said position may feel resentful. That might make the, demotivated.

On the other hand managers might concern about loosing their good team members causing them to obstruct the promotion process.

Might result in stagnant organizational culture

Internal hiring can cause company to stay unchanged due to a lack of new perspectives, skill sets, and working styles. As a result, the staff may become inefficient and unable to work with a fresh perspective. It may also have an impact on the outsider's perception of the company's progress. Employees may find it difficult to introduce new initiatives to leaders who rely on outdated procedures. Overall, a new hire provides valuable insights into how to run a business in a different way.

Limits the talent pool

Companies have hired qualified candidates for specific positions based on their educational background, work experience, and career objectives. Although they are familiar with the company, they may not be eligible for new positions. Regardless of an employee's tenure at the company, organizational fit occurs, and new hires will be better for certain specific roles in the long run. Specially for smaller organizations internal hires are not suitable.

 

what can we do to mitigate these disadvantages

> Ensure that promotions and job moves aren't the only means of recognizing and assisting     employees in their career advancement.

> Ensure the clarity of selection process.

> Managers should be trained in order to prepare career paths to their team members'.

> Employ a well-balanced mix of internal and external recruitment methods.

References.

* Human Resource Management. The Open University of Hong Kong.

* energy resourcing.com

* paycor.com

* businessjargons.com

* https://resources.workable.com

* toggl.com

* humaans.io/blog

* google.com