Internal vs External Recruitment: What You Need to Know

When it comes to internal and external recruitment, have you ever considered the principles and practices behind them and their impact?

 

If all businesses face one universal challenge, it is the recruitment challenge. Unfortunately, not every company handles it effectively as the recruitment process is often overwhelming. Companies should constantly strive to improve their hiring practices which is a process that requires skill, attention, care, investment, and skill, from finding the right talent to hiring them for a particular role.

 

In this article, we will discuss internal vs external recruitment in detail and how you can utilize both to hire the best employee for the job.

 

What is Internal Recruitment?

 

Internal vs external recruitment is choosing an existing employee or hiring outside the company to fill a job opening. Nearly every business needs an internal recruitment strategy when hiring for newer roles. It works wonders for the confidence boost of employees and promotes staff retention. If you ask us, it is a win-win situation. There are two types of internal recruitment methods:

 

Promotions

 

The most common way to practice internal recruitment is via promotion. All the junior employees interested in this opportunity can interview for this position, provided they have performed well in their current roles.

 

Sometimes, senior management can automatically promote employees if they think they are credible enough to take on the new opportunity. It sometimes involves identifying, training, and grooming the preferred employee in advance.

 

Internal Transfers

 

Internal transfer means taking employees from one part of the company and transplanting them to an open vacancy. This type of transfer will always leave a new vacancy behind.

 

Pros and Cons of Internal Recruiting

 

Let’s discuss the pros and cons of internal recruiting briefly:

 

Pros

 

• First things first, it will save your company money. You don’t have to pay any charges for job boards, marketing, application processing, choosing an ad agency, etc.
• Internally hiring is going to save you a lot of time. We all know how hectic and time-consuming it is to advertise the job, review the CVs, interview a million people before you find the right one, and then take the plunge.
• Your employee already knows the company’s workflow, teams, tools, and processes. You don’t have to spend time helping them understand every single detail.
• Internally hiring boosts the morale of your existing employees and makes them work harder.

Cons

 

• Let’s face it: hiring internally significantly limits your talent pool. You only have to choose from the people working within your company while there might be someone outside your company who is better at the job.
• By hiring internally, you instantly create another vacancy.
• You are risking stagnating the culture of your company which might make you feel stuck in a time warp.

What is External Recruitment?

 

As evident from the name, external recruitment means filling a job vacancy by finding an employee from outside the company. It is a great way to explore talent out there and hire the best one for the job. Moreover, it gives your company a breath of fresh air with a new individual with their unique perspectives, ideas, input, and working style. There are multiple ways to recruit candidates externally. We will share the most popular ones below:

Job Postings

 

Hands down, the oldest yet most popular way of finding a new employee is to advertise the job. Of course, these days, job postings aren’t limited to newspapers only. You can post the job essentially anywhere you want: on social media, conventional newspapers, job sites, your company’s website, and the list goes on.

Recruitment Agencies

 

Recruitment agencies are a step up compared to job postings. There are plenty of recruitment agencies out there that will help you find the right candidate. It will cost you a lot. However, it will dramatically reduce the time you would otherwise spend hunting for the right candidate. Please remember that not all recruitment agencies are created equal. So, choose wisely.

Social Media

 

Social media is an essential aspect of the modern-day world and undoubtedly a blunt recruitment tool that can be extremely useful for sourcing candidates organically. There is a downside to it, though. As it is free and widely accessible, you might get a lot of candidates who aren’t quite suited for the job, and you will have to sort through many CVs.

Careers Events

 

Career Events are another popular choice for job advertisements. A great plus point of career events is that you can meet your potential hire face to face.

Referral Programs

 

Many people don’t use it but trust us when we say it is the most efficient way to hire highly qualified candidates. If your company has never tried it, we recommend giving it a go.

Pros and Cons of External Recruitment

 

Let’s discuss a few pros and cons of external recruitment:

Pros

 

• First, get ready to acquire new skills and say goodbye to stagnancy.
• Your pool of candidates will be vast when you opt for external recruitment. As a result, you can find more qualified candidates for the job.
• Externally hiring will give you a thorough inside into the competition. A new candidate will bring a wealth of skills and experience and new insights into how others operate.

Cons

 

• The onboarding process takes a while as there is a lot to do.
• There is a high risk of turnover because new employees often feel overwhelmed in the new workspace.
• Externally hiring comes at a price, whether you decide to outsource the job or do it yourself. The cost of advertising a job using various platforms is increasing daily and will impact your budget.
• Be wary that there is almost always a notice period when hiring externally.

Choosing Between Internal vs External Recruitment

 

The debate of internal vs external recruitment is complex because both have unique advantages and disadvantages. We discourage any business from religiously choosing one over the other. A combo of both these recruitment styles is the best way to approach hiring for vacant roles. You have to analyze the task and decide which route to take.

 

Which type of recruitment do you guys lean towards more? We would love to know in the comments section below.