Recruitment is a vital operation that includes the process of screening, shortlisting, and selecting the best talents to fill vacant positions. Having a thoroughly-planned recruitment strategy will help organisational growth because engaging and bringing in quality talents is key to solid business practices. It is also essential that candidates being hired should be chosen selectively and carefully because bringing in bad hires will hurt the company’s bottomline.
In this case, HR leaders should rely on a tact strategy when it comes to hiring candidates. Before posting job ads, leaders need to determine whether they need to source new faces (external hires) or train current employees (internal hires) for the vacant roles.
Internal recruitment is when a company intends to fill a vacancy with talent from its existing workforce. Filling roles internally can cut hiring costs and time for posting job advertisements. The internal hires have been familiar with how the business works as well as its values and mission, therefore, the organisation could save training cost and time. Hiring internally can also mean promoting employees which then help boost morale and productivity while protecting institutional knowledge that is lost when employees leave.
See also: Why & How to Use Storytelling in Recruitment
However, internal hiring also comes with several downturns, such as limiting new innovations, ideas, and stagnant culture because sometimes internal employees are unable to bring new perspectives like the external ones. Internal recruitment will also leave a gap in the company’s workforce as leaders will need a replacement for a vacant position left by the said internal hires.
On contrary to internal recruitment, external recruitment is to hire freshly new candidates that are sourced through online or in-person approach outside the company. Different from internal hires, hiring externally could give the existing workforce a new, fresh perspective and point of view. Bringing in the new right person on board will also add value to company skills and ideas, thus, boosting organisation itself.
As mentioned earlier, however, hiring the wrong candidates could cost a lot. Based on a survey, top consequences of bad hire include an increased workload for colleagues (43 percent), as well as increased stress on managers (43 percent) and colleagues (41 percent). Bad hire also reduces workforce productivity and increases future recruitment cost. Another disadvantage of hiring externally is that new candidates might have a limited understanding of the company culture and environment. For this reason, employers will need to invest in more training and learning.
As both recruitment processes have their own advantages and disadvantages, HR leaders might wonder – which one is the best option?
Experts told SHRM that both recruitment processes are equally good if well-conducted. Yet, if HR needs to choose, it should depend on the nature of the role, such as does it require substantial collaboration, are the skills requirements unique to the company or industry, or do you need a new perspective in the workplace.
HR can also align the process based on the current goals of present employees. Encouraging the team to grow with the company can be done through promotion which can also mean internal recruitment. Therefore, having an employee’s survey and knowing each goal of employees could help in considering whether to include them in the recruitment process or not.
Read also: The Real Key to Successful Recruitment: Advice from Rebecca Skilbeck
