Pros and Cons of Internal Recruitment

Internal recruitment is a great option, offering a wide range of benefits. However, like anything, it can have some potential drawbacks to consider.

If you’re considering internal recruitment within your company, we encourage you to learn more about the advantages and disadvantages this recruitment process has to offer. To find out more about internal recruitment, continue reading.

What is Internal Recruitment?

So, what is internal recruitment? Internal recruitment is the process of considering employees who already work for your company for current job roles. Many believe that internal candidates have a better understanding of how a company works, with knowledge of set standards and expectations – but this isn’t always the case.

It’s these factors that often encourage companies to recruit internally, but in some cases, they forget about the potential disadvantages. Deciding whether to hire internally or externally takes some time and consideration.

Ultimately, you should weigh up both the pros and cons of internal and external recruitment before kickstarting the hiring process, as it’s important to make the right hiring decisions for your business.

Promotions are one of the most common internal recruitment methods. If one or more of your employees are performing well and willing to take on additional responsibilities, a promotion is usually considered.

If you have an employee who’s currently on probation, or working as an intern in a temporary role who you believe to be a great attribute to your company, you might offer them a permanent position.

In other instances of internal recruitment, there could be transfers of employees from different departments within your company who are happy to move across departments within your organisation. Additionally, internal recruitment could also take place when referrals come through regarding a certain employee.

If an existing employee possesses the skill sets required for a specific job role and has all the relevant qualifications to apply, they could be a great potential candidate within the company. Referrals often help save time and money during recruitment.

The Pros of Internal Recruitment

Internal recruitment might be a great option for some companies, whereas others steer towards hiring external candidates.

Hiring existing employees is often seen as the easier, less expensive option – this particular method of recruitment often means quicker onboarding and stronger employee engagement, to name a few. Let’s take a look at the advantages of internal recruitment in greater detail.

Quicker Onboarding

Internal hires are often more familiar and comfortable with people in their team, especially if you have a small business. Undoubtedly, fitting in with a close-knit team of employees and adapting to company culture can be challenging for some, but internal hiring could potentially help avoid this sometimes awkward stage of starting a new job.

Onboarding times can sometimes be long, so it could certainly be seen as an advantage to hire internally. From offering a job position to conducting background checks and ensuring your new employee is a recognised team member, some find the process of external hiring quite lengthy.

The average onboarding time is about a month, as recent polls revealed that most hiring managers and human resource professionals commit just four weeks to onboarding new workers.

It’s thought that internal hiring could reduce recruitment time by up to 20 days. Even though internal recruitment might seem the easier route, you should still look out for key attributes in employees, such as:

• Work ethic
• Dedication
• Adaptability
• Leadership skills

Reduced Costs

Companies could save both time and money when opting for internal recruitment and, if internal recruitment is done properly, companies could reduce costs and save time posting to job boards or reaching out to local agencies.

If you believe that someone within your company is a good fit for a job role, you’ll probably save yourself looking for an external hire.

Stronger Employee Engagement

If companies show their existing employees that there are chances for growth and new opportunities within the business, employee engagement will likely increase.

Although this doesn’t always happen, it could be a great advantage for your company if it did. Hiring internally could help reassure your current employees that their expertise and professionalism aren’t going unnoticed when job opportunities arise.

The Cons of Internal Recruitment

Just as there are advantages of internal recruitment, there are disadvantages, too. The hiring process that your company chooses to go through should be carefully considered.

It’s important to understand the disadvantages of internal recruitment before assuming that it’s the most promising option for your business. Hiring internally won’t be the best option for everyone and here are some reasons why that might be.

Limited Pool of Candidates

While your company might have qualified candidates who are ideal for certain positions, this isn’t necessarily true for every open role. By recruiting internally, you’re reducing your options.

You won’t have as many people to consider for the position, and you’ll be limited to just one, or a few people to choose from. Essentially, this means that you could miss out on diverse and skilled talent – something you can find easily through external recruitment.

Requires Much More Effort

Although internal recruitment can potentially save time and money, it often requires much more effort. Instead of simply posting a job vacancy and waiting for suitable candidates to come forward, you might spend more effort pinpointing who to promote or invite to apply for a new position within your organisation. You’ll need to put in effort to ensure that the people working for you are both worthy and qualified for such a role.

Can Leave a Gap in the Workforce

When you promote someone or transfer an individual from your company to a new position, you’re leaving their previous spot vacant. A continuous cycle of internal recruitment could potentially disrupt your company’s operations.

Reduces Diversity

Even though it might seem logistically and financially easier to rely on a limited talent pool, businesses should be careful. Heavily relying on a limited talent pool could reduce diverse talent in the workplace.

With external recruitment, you have a higher chance of connecting with potential candidates who possess unique and varied skills and talents, which all workplaces need.

Limits Innovation

Limited innovation in a workplace can cause many problems. By keeping the same group of employees for a long period without externally hiring and connecting with talented professionals, fewer ideas and more missed opportunities could occur. With continuous innovation often come new clients.

The bottom line is that the method in which you choose to recruit should be down to your overall business goals and budget. Hiring externally offers a wide range of benefits, proving to be a promising option for construction companies.

Streamline the Recruitment Process With Strategic Resourcing

From a potentially quicker recruitment process and cost savings, it’s easy to understand why many companies lean towards internal recruitment.

However, external recruitment can be made easy, offering you access to new and exciting talent, which internal recruitment sometimes doesn’t offer. At Strategic Resourcing, we understand the challenges that companies face when it comes to recruitment.

This is why we encourage you to use our innovative platform to find the construction industry’s top talent. Our trusted platform not only allows you to manage recruitment in one place, resulting in quicker onboarding but also saves you time and reduces workload.

Our easy-to-use platform offers a streamlined way to find future employees. You’ll be able to post as many vacancies as you want, speeding up the entire recruitment process for all roles available.

Our recruiters are specific to the built environment sector and have relevant industry experience to find the best-suited candidates for you.

If you require any additional information about our software, please get in touch today. To see our software in action, we encourage you to fill out your details below: