The pros and cons of advertising internally

Advertising a job internally often happens when an employer wants to quickly and seamlessly move staff between existing positions. While there’s no legal requirement for employers to advertise both internally and externally, we’re going to take a look at any potential issues that can come from only advertising roles within the workplace.

Advantages The clear advantages to advertising internally are:

• It’s cheaper and quicker than external advertising
• The role can be widely shared on the internal intranet or notice boards
• The application and job description can be emailed to all members of staff
• The position can be shared without impacting on the advertising budget
• The advert can have a shorter deadline than external adverts with applications being made, which may be useful when there's been a shock exit from the company or a quick recruitment is needed to ensure stability and productivity

The main benefits to your business of advertising a role internally are:

• Those who apply for the role are already familiar to managers, which makes the recruitment process slightly easier
• The applicant’s strengths, weaknesses, skills and training needs should all be on their current record
• It’s unlikely that there will be any unwelcome surprises or personality clashes if you’re internally recruiting

Disadvantages The main disadvantages of advertising internally are:

• The pool of people the role is aimed at is smaller than if it was advertised externally
• You may be missing out on the best person for the job if they’re not already employed by you
• The opportunity to introduce some new skills, ideas or personalities into the business will also be missed

Although the internal candidate will likely be very good at their existing job, they may not be the best person for the new role. For example, if a current employee is applying for a manager’s role, they may not currently have the management skills and leadership qualities required to handle the responsibility without additional training. Employers may have to provide extra time, support and training to ensure the employee is up to the required standard – although they may choose to do this so that they don’t lose the individual from the business. Additionally, advertising internally can cause tensions between existing staff when the time comes to recruit – especially if more than one person applies for the job and there are unsuccessful applicants. Employers may find themselves having to deal with the fall-out, including grievances against the recruitment decision or insubordination.