5 Pros and Cons of Internal Recruitment

There are many ways companies fill up vacancies for specific jobs. The two most common approaches are internal recruitment and external recruitment. At times, there are deputations or temporary positions and not necessarily recruitment. Internships are mostly temporary and a type of external recruitment. Exchange programs, although rare among disassociated companies, are also a derivative of external recruitment. Internal recruitment is hiring from within the ranks and files of employees already working for the company. There are obvious advantages and disadvantages of such an approach.

List of Pros of Internal Recruitment

1. Simple & Quick
The recruitment process is very simple. One doesn’t have to use job portals or spend on advertising and one doesn’t pay to the human resource consultants or on events wooing potential jobseekers. All that a company needs to do is make a shortlist of the most suited candidates from within the payroll and then interview all the best ones in that list to find the ideal one. This is a very simple, fast and reliable process.

2. Effective Transition
Internal recruitment has two very important advantages. The company knows the employee and the employee knows the business, hence the job. Usually, it takes months for a company to truly understand and know a new recruit. A new recruit also takes a long time to truly develop the same philosophies and have a realistic understanding of what the company does, how and why. Internal recruitment pertaining to employees that have worked for a few years with the same organization will always have both the employer and the recruit on the same page. There is very little transition time and complexity while moving the employee to the new job description.

3. Impact on Workplace Culture
The induction process is simple, there is no major need for cultural grooming or on the job training, it paves the way for healthy workplace competition and the recruitments can effectively become promotions. The visible progression and possibilities of career advancement will always encourage the other employees when you go for internal recruitment. Everyone wants to know that there is scope for growth, at least the talented and ambitious employees.

List of Cons of Internal Recruitment

1. Unsuitable & Ineffective
You may not have the right talent or the right person with the ability, experience and drive to suit the job. Focusing on internal recruitment will be unwise in such circumstances.

2. Calls for Perennial Grooming
If you are not grooming people for internal recruitment, then there will be a gap in the hierarchy and you will still have to resort to external recruitment to fill that space.