Internal Recruitment: A Complete Guide for HR

Internal recruitment is a type of recruitment that involves seeking, selecting and recruiting candidates to fill a vacant position, prioritizing the company's current employees. In other words, rather than posting a job offer to seek external candidates, we want to recruit members who are already part of the structure; this will give them the opportunity to grow within the company.

If you want to optimize your recruitment process more generally, an article on the 7 stages of recruitment is also available.

1 - The advantages of internal recruitment

Internal recruitment has many advantages, here is a list of a few to remember:

To begin with, internal recruitment promotes employee loyalty. By providing your employees with career development opportunities, you will make them feel like they are progressing and rewarding their efforts. By valuing internal promotion, you will motivate your employees and they will feel fulfilled. This will have positive repercussions on their performance at work but also on their loyalty; you will have more chances to keep your talents in your company.

Second, internal recruitment can lead to a reduction in the costs associated with external recruitment. Indeed, the latter can be costly when it comes to publishing job offers, consulting recruitment firms, seeking candidates from outside the company and integrating them. By recruiting an employee who is already in the structure and who knows how it works, you will save considerable time in the management of human resources.

Finally, internal recruitment allows a company to enhance the skills of its employees. By offering them opportunities akin to a promotion, their experience and know-how are recognized and rewarded. Such an act also serves as a pledge of trust, which will encourage your employees to develop professionally but also to flourish in their work. A corporate culture that values internal promotion is, by definition, a culture that pulls its employees upwards. This becomes a major asset for developing your employer brand.

2 - The disadvantages of internal recruitment

However, although internal recruitment has interesting advantages, it also has some significant disadvantages:

The first of these disadvantages is the lack of diversity in the choice of profiles. By resorting to internal recruitment, a company risks limiting itself in the diversity of its profiles and the skills of its employees; she thus takes the risk of not taking a fresh and outside look at the work accomplished. Diversity in talent generally promotes innovation and creativity, which can breathe new life into a lackluster structure.

Second, there may be a risk of favoritism and complacency in choosing only existing employees. Some may be favored by default, without any objective consideration of their skills, which undermines the principle of equal opportunity. This kind of piston leads to a feeling of injustice among other employees, and the esteem they have for their employer can drastically drop. Basing its internal recruitment policy on personal ties rather than on professional merit is a serious mistake.

Moreover, when an employee is promoted internally, it is not uncommon for this change to break the team dynamic in place. This can create disruptions in the original team, but also in the one the employee has joined ; in addition to a change in climate, this dynamic can be difficult to manage and employees will have to adapt.

Finally, when an employee takes on a new position, he often needs to be trained and supported to take charge of his new missions and responsibilities. A transition to a new position is a significant challenge and the employee may need support to fully succeed in their integration. It is essential to prepare it. If this step were to be neglected or sloppy, it could have immediate consequences on the productivity of the team. Our article on integrating a collaborator will be of great help to you.

3 - How to recruit internally?

Now you may want to adopt an internal recruitment policy in your company or simply improve it. To proceed with its implementation, a few steps must be followed upstream in order to avoid recruitment errors. Here are our tips:

The first step is to identify the positions to be filled within the company, and to define the selection criteria required for each of these positions. If it is a job creation, the human resources managers will have to write clear and detailed job descriptions. Conversely for an already existing position, they will have to update them. In each of these cases, special attention will have to be paid to the skills and experiences required to occupy each position.

Secondly, you will have to assess the skills and potential of your internal employees: by analyzing their profiles, you will be able to determine whether or not they are able to fulfill the role you wish to give them. These assessments can be done via assessment solutions, depending on the skills you are looking to assess with them. In both cases, this is an important strategic step.In this frame, choose Yuzu. We immerse talents in situations developed with the latest Video Game technologies. Each adventure evaluates a know-how in 10 to 20 minutes. Simplified orders allow all profiles to be evaluated fairly.In addition, our solution is accessible to everyone and from any computer thanks to Cloud Gaming. In addition, this is an essential point for recruiting online, for more details see our article on e-recruitment.

Discover the future of assessment with Yuzu

Then, you will have to promote internal mobility opportunities and communicate about vacancies in your company. This can be done through announcements, internal communications, bulletin boards, team meetings, etc. The objective is to arouse the interest of your employees by presenting them the advantages of internal mobility. If the subject interests you, we have listed 7 steps for a successful internal mobility in 2023.

Finally, the last step consists in setting up a rigorous and transparent selection process : it is important to do this according to the nature of the positions to be filled, so as to guarantee a fair and objective assessment of all candidates. This process can take the form of structured interviews, skills assessments, case studies, or practice tests. The objective is of course, in the long term, to find the ideal candidate for each position.

4 - Good internal recruitment practices

Now, we are going to give you some good practices to adopt during your internal recruitment sessions. If you follow them, you will be sure to recruit the best people while keeping your employer brand intact.

First of all, involving managers and teams in the recruitment process makes it possible to collect different opinions and guarantee a more objective inspection of candidates. The people who meet them on a daily basis are the ones who can best describe them. Since managers have a deeper understanding of employee skills, you will be able to get vital information about them from them. In addition, their involvement in the selection process can strengthen their buy-in and their sense of responsibility, because the future of the company will depend in part on them.

Then, it may be a good idea to offer candidates training and personal development programs. On the one hand, it would show the willingness of the company to see its talents develop professionally, and on the other hand, these trainings could help candidates to acquire the knowledge and skills necessary for the position they covet. This feeling of progress is a strong incentive to promote to make your employees even better.

Finally, you will need to ensure transparent and fair communication with internal candidates. This last step is one of the 7 keys to the success of your recruitment, because it will guarantee the maintenance of confidence in your internal recruitment process. This method requires providing clear and precise information on the positions to be filled, but also on the selection criteria and the stages of the process. Candidates should also receive constructive feedback on the reason for their selection (or conversely, their non-selection) as this will contribute to their personal development and motivation.

To remember

Internal recruitment has many advantages for companies that want to retain their employees and strengthen their adherence to the structure. The promotion of internal mobility is a factor that influences the motivation of your employees, but also their desire to evolve professionally.

By favoring internal recruitment, you will highlight the skills and expertise already present within your company. You will save time and also save money on your hiring sessions. All this while creating a strong corporate culture conducive to solidarity. However, be careful not to rely on your achievements: you risk lacking diversity in your profiles. Indeed, it can be interesting to bring a fresh look from time to time. Also, avoid favoritism, as it can break the trust that exists between you and your employees.

In conclusion, internal recruitment is a powerful lever that makes it possible to meet the needs of companies in terms of talent. By adopting good practices and supporting your employees in their professional development, your image will be strengthened and your employees will feel fulfilled. You will thus ensure the sustainability, stability and success of your business.