Case $5\mathrm{.}2.$ Internal Versus External

Candidates: Which Candidate is More Valuable?

Organizational Recruiting Considerations

Organizations need to build a list of internal employees who can be tapped when

high$-$leve! employees change companies, retire, or pass away. Much like a baseball

team, there must be good people on the bench in lower$-$level positions ready to take

the place of players$/$employees who are no longer able to do their job.

Internal recruiting involves filling job openings with current employees or peo$-$

ple the employees know. Promotion from within means the organization posts job

openings on company$-$wide e$-$mail, company newsletters, bulletin boards, and other

internal mechanisms to promote the open positions. Employee referrals are a second

type of internal recrulting. Referrals mean employees are encouraged to refer friends

and relatives to apply for a position.

The advantage of internal recruiting is that it increases employee commitment

and job satisfaction because employees feel they have an opportunity to advance in

the company; the employee already works for the company, which shows interest in

working at the company; the company already has knowledge of the employee's work

habits; and it is often quicker and less costly than a full external search.

The disadvantage of searching to fill positions internally in the company is the

pool of potential applicants is much smaller; there may be better qualifled applicants

in the external pool of prospects; employees will feel that they are guaranteed to fill

open positions, which will lead to a lack of new people who can provide new ideas

and creativity; and success in a lower$-$level position does not mean the employee will

be successful in the higher$-$level position.

External recruitment also has advantages and disadvantages when a company

is looking to fill a position. External recruiting sources include people who walk in

to the position either in$-$person or online, recruitment at high schools and colleges,

employment agencies that focus on finding talented employees to match with job

openings, and advertisements online, in newspapers, and through various media.

External recruitment will lead to new people being hired who should have inno.

vative ideas to operate the company. We can also find people who have experience in

the position we are trying to fill. However, new people might cause some disruption

in the way things are normally done, which can cause some conflict. External recrult$-$

ments can take more time and will cost more money than an internal search. Most

important, the internal candidate might have a nice looking r$$sum$$ and references,

but the company has no real data to support the assumption the employee is a good

fit for the open position.

Amanda Clark is an internal candidate for an open assistant director position at

the nonprofit community center where she has worked for nearly $30$ years. Amanda

has a bachelor's degree in education and was a program director for teens for $9$ months

of the year. She would then switch hats and become the summer camp director for the

remaining three months. She ran the youth theater group for the nonprofit commu.

nity center. She was also involved in finding $50$ teenagers to participate in a summer

sport tournament. The list of tasks she completed is extensive and would be hard to

list in its entirety.