Internal and External Recruiting
Wilson Cole | October 10, 2022
You can search internally or externally to locate the top applicants for the open positions at your organization. While external recruiting involves posting job ads to find a candidate who does not already work for your firm, internal recruiting refers to filling an available position from within your present pool of employees through a promotion or transfer.
It is critical to comprehend the pros and cons of internal and external recruitment processes when deciding whether to use one or the other for your next hire. On the one hand, internal hiring can reduce costs, save time, and boost overall employee engagement.
On the other hand, hiring from outside the company gives you access to a wider pool of applicants, which may yield prospects of greater caliber.
Remember that you can utilize either of these two approaches at various times or for different responsibilities in your hiring process; they are not mutually exclusive.
Understanding External Recruiting
Hiring companies can find prospects for their clients by using external recruitment methods. Finding people outside your organization can be done through various sourcing techniques. Common outside sources for hiring include:
1. Job boards or sites
Post your opening on the main employment boards to find outside applicants. A thorough description should be included in the job postings. Include the abilities and traits that your client is seeking.
2. Social media platforms
Recruit candidates from outside your company by using social media. Engage in regular social media interaction to build relationships to gain the trust of potential candidates who have never worked for your company.
3. Company website
Job vacancies should be listed on the company’s website. Your external candidate pool gets bigger the more you market a vacancy. Finding the right individual for the vacancy is easier when there are more interested applicants.
4. Getting referrals
Getting referrals is a fantastic resource for finding people who can smoothly pass background checks. Through your network, you locate candidates who are suggested. Inform your client list and candidate pool that you value recommendations. Retain contact with former employees and clients who can recommend you to leads.
5. Utilize a recruiting firm
If you want zero-hassle and fast results, you can tap a recruiting firm specializing in your industry to do the hiring for you. Granted, you have to pay placement fees, but these recruiting firms optimize the process for you, and you even save time and money.
Why consider recruiting externally?
Recruiting from outside sources can have its own benefits, such as:
1. Fresh insights
Candidates hired externally have distinctive backgrounds that might offer new approaches and concepts. The employee may know how to execute things more effectively. Your company can gain a new perspective regarding operations and chances for development.
2. Access to a wider pool of candidates
A wider pool of candidates is available to you through external recruitment than from within a company. This is because businesses have more possibilities to fill unfilled positions when the pool of prospective employees is larger.
3. Branding boost
External hiring contributes to building an employer brand that draws top-tier prospects. In addition, by using a variety of platforms to advertise the position, you may make your brand and company culture more well-known.
Understanding Internal Recruiting
To find applicants among the current staff, businesses can use internal recruitment. A position is offered to a current employee through internal recruitment. Internal hiring can be more convenient than external recruiting, even though it can occasionally be constrained.
Typically, a recruiter will not assist a client with internal candidate sourcing. However, the following internal recruitment techniques can be used by hiring managers to locate internal hires:
1. Promotion
Hiring managers may choose to advance an existing employee into a higher-level role. Hiring supervisors are familiar with the employee's skills because they have already worked together.
2. Internal Marketing
Hiring managers may advertise a post internally to attract candidates. They can issue an internal message and post notices on bulletin boards and break rooms. Include "internal only" in the job description if it is online.
3. Temp-to-direct
Businesses may engage people to perform ad hoc tasks. For example, temporary workers may be retained on a full-time basis, a practice that is known as a temp-to-direct or temp-to-hire. A full-time temporary worker frequently works more hours, has more responsibility, and earns more money. In addition, the client company must pay a contract conversion fee to the recruiter who found the employee. Before bringing on a temporary worker for a full-time position, hiring managers might evaluate their talents.
4. Employ a former worker as a contractor
An ex-employee has knowledge of the company and the jobs that need to be done. It might be less complicated to hire a retired employee on a contract basis than to find an outsider for temporary positions.
Why consider recruiting internally?
There are also benefits to hiring within your company’s circle, which are:
1. Employees are familiar with the company
An employee who a company already employs is more familiar with the company's procedures. They are familiar with the workplace environment, routine jobs, and coworkers. As a result, the onboarding procedure could be less complicated than external hiring.
2. Hiring managers are already familiar with the candidate
The employee already has a relationship with the hiring manager. Therefore, when the post is filled, there is no need to establish a brand-new relationship. There is already a foundation of trust between the employer and the employee.
3. Demonstrates that the company is capable of career development
Employees are more inclined to look for employment elsewhere if they believe they are stuck in a position and can’t progress at the company. Therefore, internal recruitment can encourage employee retention by giving current employees new chances inside a firm.
To Wrap It Up
Any successful recruitment strategy must combine internal and external recruiting. It takes a detailed examination of the function and its responsibilities, plus a complete understanding of the business and where it is heading, to know whether to use either strategy and where to go for your next star employee.
Wilson Cole is the founder and CEO of Adams, Evens & Ross, the nations largest credit and collection agency design exclusively for the staffing and recruiting industry. In 2008 he was inducted into INC Magazines, "INC 500" for being the CEO of Adams, Evens & Ross, the 307th fastest growing privately held company in America. This exclusive group of other INC 500 CEOs includes Bill Gates of Microsoft and Larry Ellison of Oracle.In 2007 Recruiting & Staffing Solutions Magazine's Editorial Staff named him " The Billion Dollar Man" due to the fact that he had collected or helped his clients collect more than 1 Billion dollars in past due debt over his career of almost 20 years as CEO of Adams, Evens & Ross.