It may be time to look at your internal recruitment process, and make sure it’s helping, and not hurting, you. Promoting from within can be disastrous if not done with the right information and planning. While there are benefits to recruiting from within your organization, there are also dangers associated with it.

A Diverse Workforce Represents a Diverse Customer Base

While it’s certainly a good idea to retain and develop the talent that you already have, work cultures that believe in exclusively promoting from within often end up short-changing themselves because they lack diversity – potentially of race and gender, but more importantly, of perspective and experience. Having a rich fabric of varying thought based on different experiences, industries, backgrounds, and interests – that’s what helps drive innovation.

When an organization has too many employees that start as part-timers and work their way up, and have only ever worked at the same company, their views can easily become insular, and disconnected from the marketplace. This is a very real risk. If your workforce is not representative of the outside world, your customers, your organization won’t understand the changing needs of your customers.

Spending a lifetime at one company is a thing of the past. Millennials have no concept of staying at the same place for any longer than they are stimulated and content – so why would you construct a culture that is so at odds with the world on the outside and with the market you’re serving?

Innovation is Critical to an Organization’s Long-Term Success

With the acceleration of technology and innovation in the world today, your organization needs to proactively plan for the succession of senior roles and the integration of new skill sets. Training is not always the answer, some industries are moving so fast that you need the work experience from people in the right place at the right time. Once you hire those individuals, effectively engaging them to inform your organizational direction is critical. A robust workforce where employees’ backgrounds are from many different industries and organizations, and cultures with a variety of skillsets will help you develop creative solutions and drive the innovation required for your employer brand and ultimately, the long-term success of your business.

What? Internal Politics? No….

Although sometimes based on seniority, which has its own problems, internal hiring can also be very political, and often, you don’t even get the best person from the job out of your small pool of candidates!
It is easier to find the best person for the job when you have a larger pool of candidates.

Great talent is not going to apply if your employee value proposition is that you promote from within – why would they? And you lose a golden opportunity to acquire the intellectual capital that you want and need – the talent that may be critical to your survival as an organization.

The ideal, of course, is balance – to recognize the talent you already have within your organization by promoting where it makes most sense, but also to give your company an opportunity to grow through hiring internally, and bringing on board employees with new perspectives, experiences, and insights.

What are the best practices to achieve that balance?

Instead of posting a job for two to three weeks before it’s posted externally, don’t make the outside world your second choice.
Be open with your employees that you are looking at both internal and external applicants, simultaneously, and that you are committed to finding the best candidate for the job, regardless where s/he currently works.
Find out how your brand as an employer is perceived on the external market. Blu Ivy Group can help you find out, conducting external research to validate if you’re perceived as an innovative organization.

Once you express interest in the external candidate market, communicate openly with your employees, and gain an understanding of what the external perception of your organization is.
An organization that engages both internal and external talent effectively in their recruitment process can look forward to bringing in outside perspectives that enrich, challenge, and improve both your culture, and your brand.