External vs. Internal Recruitment - Essay Example

Recruitment Table of Contents Introduction 3 Recruitment Process 3 Internal Recruitment 4 External Recruitment 6 Conclusion 7 References 9 Introduction Competitive business scenario has made it imperative for the business organization to focus on recruitment. Recruitment has gained more importance than any other process because the industrial fraternity has realized that people are the key to success. Recruitment process is a subset of the human resource management. Most of the successful organizations today, have their own recruitment policies. According to experts the purpose of recruitment involves a proper analysis of the position that needs to be filled. Such analysis not only includes identification of the company’s short, medium and long term goals but also its alignment with the description, specification and analysis of the job and person. Generally there are two types of recruitment, internal recruitment and external recruitment. This paper provides an overview of the entire recruitment process. The report also evaluates the process of internal and external recruitment. Recruitment Process Recruitment refers to the process of locating potential applicants and encouraging them to apply for the anticipated or existing job openings. In simple words recruitment strategies are adopted with the purpose of creating a group of qualified, experienced and skilled people beforehand so that selection processes becomes easier and effective. In other words recruitment is all about finding the right people in the right place at the right time with the right price. The entire recruitment process involves five key steps. These are preparing, selecting the recruiter, sourcing the candidates, taking legislative aspects into consideration and selecting the methods to be applied. The preparation process involves deciding on the various alternatives of recruitments. Sourcing of candidates might be done through consultants, internet and advertising. Each and every recruitment exercise can be considered as an opportunity of analyzing the job, updating person specification and describing the job. The main objective of any recruitment process is to ensure the presence of adequate and effective staffs in the organization. To guarantee this, appropriate people must be made aware of the existing job opportunities and efforts must be taken to make sure to these vacancies are properly filled. There are two major ways to fill the vacancies of an organization. These are internal recruitment and external recruitment. Between the two the one that would be chosen depends on human resource policies, organizational strategies, financial condition and employee morale. Internal Recruitment The process of internal recruitment can be referred as the process of attracting applications from the present employees of the organization (Hunt, 2004). There are various ways in which internal recruitment could be done. Some of these are explained below. Promotion or direct appointment: In this process top management of the organization can directly appoint or promote an existing employee of the company. Management often implements the reward system. However there should be a fair selection process and careful succession plan, otherwise management can be charged of favoritism. Lateral transfer: This process refers to the internal transfer of an employee to the job opening. It is a part of the job rotation system. It is crucial to identify the suitable person and this can be done with the help of human resource information system, organization’s intranet and employee recommendations. Internal Advertising: This perhaps is the most risk free and fair method of internal recruitment. This method provides more choice to the management and it enables the management to find the right person with the suitable talent, skills and knowledge. Moreover this process strengthens the trust of the employees on the organization’s culture and system. They appreciate this initiative because equal opportunities are available for all. Internal advertisement can be given in bulletin boards and memos, although now a day internet is most widely used for this purpose. Advantages and disadvantages of internal recruitment One of the major advantages of internal recruitment is that it boosts the morale of the employees. Furthermore it is easier to evaluate an applicant’s ability as the management is likely to have some idea about the person because he/she is already working with the organization. Internal recruitment enables organization to save significant amount of costs as the recruited individuals are likely to require shorter period of training (The Times 100, n.d.). People who will be recruited through the process of internal recruitment are likely to have clear understanding regarding the organizational structure, culture and its overall operations. As a result it is expected that internal recruitment would not disrupt the organization and this is major advantage of the process. Moreover if internal recruitment is done in the form of internal promotion then it would definitely acts as a motivating factor for all the employees. Apart from all the above mentioned advantages there are potential disadvantages of internal recruitment. Internal recruitment can create dissatisfaction among those who are not promoted. It also encourages political infighting to get promotion. In order to maintain a fair internal recruitment process, organizations require strong performance assessment system. Moreover the organization might be criticized by the outsiders for not recruiting people from outside. External Recruitment External recruitment enables the organization to access a larger group of talents. It provides the opportunity of bringing new ideas and new experiences into the organization. Organizations recruit external individuals when they do not find the suitable people from the existing employee pool. There are several ways in which external recruitment process can be carried out. Choice of the source for external candidates is a crucial factor. Universities as well as the high schools are found to be useful sources for graduate or base level recruitment. Moreover there are several trade unions and professional associations that provide suitable individuals. Organizations’ current employees can also refer high quality individuals. Advertising vacant positions is one of the most common ways of conducting external recruitment. However advertisement of a position would depend on the labor market. When the economy has a high level of employment, organizations might need to go for national or overseas advertising but when unemployment rate is high then advertisement in local media is expected to produce results. Advantages and disadvantages of external recruitment Like internal recruitment, external recruitment also has several advantages and disadvantages. Major advantage of external recruitment is it brings fresh blood and new ideas in the organization. Since in external recruitment, individuals are recruited from outside, complaints regarding favoritism is less likely to come up which is a major advantage for the organization. Moreover current employees push themselves harder to perform better and compete with the new comers. They update their existing knowledge and skills in order to remain competitive. This in turn improves the organization’s overall performance. It has been observed that some organizations recruit external candidates with the purpose of changing the outdated and tired culture of the organization. External candidates make the organization’s workforce more dynamic in nature. In spite of all these advantages, external recruitment process has several disadvantages. The most common problem is that adaptation. It has often been found that external individuals struggle to cope up with the existing culture of the organization. Moreover issues regarding the morale of existing employees should also be taken into consideration. If an individual is recruited externally for a high position in the organizations then the existing employees might feel ignored. Moreover if the requirement is urgent then external recruitment might not be the best option as it is likely to take significant amount of time. External recruitment involves more cost as compared to internal recruitment. Moreover training and development programs for the newly recruited people are also likely to take more time and money (Compton, Nankervis, 2009). If the advantages and disadvantages of both internal as well as external recruitment are analyzed it would be clear that organization’s human resource management strategies must be closely linked with its recruitment strategies. In today’s environment most of the firms are found to be using a combination of internal and external recruitment strategies. Conclusion Recruitment is one of the most crucial processes for any organization as it is directly related to the employees who in turn are responsible for the success of the organization. As a result recruitment is the key to success for any organization. There are two types of recruitment process, internal and external recruitment. Internal recruitment process involves promotion or direct appointment of any internal employee of the organization. On the other hand external recruitment process involves recruitment from the outside world. Both the processes have their own share of advantages as well as disadvantages. Organizations generally use both the processes with the objective of attaining its long term human resource as well as organizational objectives. References Compton, R.L. Nankervis, R. A. 2009, Effective recruitment & selection practices, CCH Australia Limited Hunt, J. G. 2004, Organizational behavior, Anonymous The Times 100, No Date, Recruitment, selection and training, Recruitment and selection, Retrieved February 25, 2010 from http://www.thetimes100.co.uk/theory/theory--recruitment-selection--349.php Read More