Recruitment Source Selection: Internal or External Recruitment

The recruitment source (or the recruitment channel) selection is a process step, which is mainly about the combination of the speed and the cost of the selection of the new employee. The main issue for the HR Recruiter is about the choice between the internal and external recruitment.

The internal recruitment gives the opportunity to the employees of the organization, but it is not suitable for all the job vacancies. The external recruitment is expensive, takes usually longer time and the new employee does not know the organization and the learning curve is less steep.

The internal recruitment is an excellent tool for the job vacancies, where the know how is available in the organization and it allows to use the human capital efficiently as the employees move to the job positions, where their value added for the organization is maximized.

The external recruitment is suitable for the job position, where the organization needs to enhance its know how for the external experience and for the job vacancies, which are confidential and they cannot be announced internally to employees.

In practice, the external recruitment is used more as the organization needs also stability and the employees cannot jump from the job position to another after several months. The organization usually guarantee some stability to managers and they ask the employees to stay on the current job position for at least 18 months before applying for a new job opportunity inside the organization.

The HR Recruiter has to communicate with the managers and the HR Front Office to identify the opportunities to hire the new employee internally and the HR Front Office can help to identify the suitable employees for the new vacancy.

Generally, the internal recruitment is an excellent recruitment tool, when the department enhances its processes and services provided to the other units in the organization or to the external customers. The external recruitment should be used, when the organization wants to enter a new field of the business and it needs to gain an expertise and know how quickly.