Internal and external sources of staff recruitment

For the successful operation of any enterprise, personnel or, as is commonly said in modern society, personnel are of great importance. The income of the company and its competitive ability in the market of goods or services depends on those people who perform the functions and duties assigned to them. Therefore, the selection of personnel is an important component of the HR service or manager, whose competence includes the search, hiring and adaptation of employees. This article will answer the question of what internal and external sources of staff involvement exist. And also in the article we will talk about what are the advantages and disadvantages of these sources.

External sources

External sources include personnel:

• recruiting companies and recruitment agencies;
• private and public services and employment centers;
• specialized educational institutions;
• professional clubs;
• public organizations.

Methods of external involvement

In order for the recruitment of candidates to the company to be successful, the personnel manager must apply the following series of methods:

• holding seminars, conferences or exhibitions within the company;
• holding job fairs;
• notification of open vacancies using the media (television, press, radio, Internet);
• the holding of so-called career days in specialized educational institutions;
• manager visits to professional clubs or public organizations;
• organization of professional skill contests.

In order to be able to apply each of these methods, initially it is necessary to assess the situation on the labor market in the region where the enterprises are located and analyze the main criteria for the requirements for the candidate. For example, if the organization needs young and active specialists, then the method of treatment and cooperation with higher education institutions will be ideal. But if a candidate with extensive experience is required, such a source of attracting staff for the organization will be absolutely ineffective.

As already noted, each method and source has its advantages and disadvantages, but it is worthwhile to dwell on this issue. This is necessary in order to understand in which companies external sources of personnel attraction will work best, and for which companies, on the contrary, they will become only an obstacle in the search for specialists.

Benefits of External Sources

• The main advantage of external sources of personnel attraction can be considered wide boundaries of the choice of specialists.
• With the advent of new professional employees, a company often has new impulses in its development.
• External sources of staff recruitment are fully capable of satisfying the organization’s need for people.
• Outside recruitment reduces the risk of intrigue in the team.
• New people often bring to the company newer ideas for its development.
• If the enterprise is engaged in the production of specific products or uses certain technologies in its activities, an external source of attracting staff for financial costs is much cheaper than training or reprofiling people already involved in the enterprise.
• Attracting staff from external sources, at the same time you can advertise the company in the external environment.

Disadvantages of external sources

We can distinguish the following disadvantages of external sources of staff:

• Significant waste of the company on attracting specialists.
• There is a high probability that the employee may not pass the probationary period, which will contribute to labor turnover.
• New employees are poorly oriented at the workplace, respectively, difficulties may arise in adaptation, getting used to the management style and corporate culture of the enterprise.
• Attracting by middle and senior managers blocks the possibility of career advancement of other employees along the career ladder, which may negatively affect staff motivation.
• Decrease in labor productivity due to the period of adaptation.

Internal sources of personnel search

The internal sources of attracting specialists for the enterprise include:

• personnel reserve;
• candidates who take the initiative in their work;
• worthy employees of the enterprise;
• personal contacts of employees (friends, relatives, acquaintances who meet the requirements of the position);
• former employees of the organization.

Methods of internal involvement

In order for the application of methods to find personnel within the organization to be successful, the manager needs to make a fairly large amount of effort. It will be required:

• organization of "open days";
• design and creation of corporate press or message boards;
• internship and practice;
• organization of "career days";
• Creation of a work program "Fast career";
• informing about vacant places at general meetings or meetings;
• organization of internal corporate professional competitions.

It is worth noting that the internal source of personnel search and selection is the labor resource of the enterprise. In this case, it should be borne in mind that each of the above methods must be applied based on the current goals of the organization. Thus, for example, you can search for candidates for vacant positions within the organization:

• if management wants to minimize the number of staff;
• in the organization of horizontal redistribution of personnel;
• in the organization of vertical redistribution of personnel.

Recruiting within the organization is an integral part of the work of the personnel department and personnel policy of the company, which is focused on a certain development of its employees and obtaining professional returns from them, and, as a result, profit from their activities. But this option of attracting personnel also has a number of advantages.

Benefits of Internal Engagement

These include:

1. Increasing the chance of building a career and, accordingly, the emergence of a sense of employee attachment to the organization.
2. Low staffing costs.
3. Reduced time spent on adaptation.
4. The ability to "educate" your own personnel.
5. The emergence of focused training for employees.
6. The ability to avoid staff turnover in the organization.
7. There is an opportunity to assess the ability of staff.

Disadvantages of internal sources of staff recruitment

The main ones are:

1. Limited choice of staff.
2. The likelihood of a team creating stressful and conflict situations.
3. The appearance of familiarity.
4. The probability of losing an employee with extensive experience due to a possible refusal to him in a vacant position.
5. Additional costs for re-profiling or training employees.
6. With the increase of employees, new vacancies for their old positions appear, so the need for personnel does not decrease, but only its level changes.

Search and selection of employees for leadership positions

The first thing you need to pay attention to when looking for a candidate for a managerial position is his role in the organization, namely it will be operational or strategic. The following sources of search for candidates of high rank are:

• own personnel reserve;
• labor market;
• other companies.

The best source can be considered the organization’s own personnel reserve, and this is due to the fact that many experts note a clear trend in the lack of competent and professional managerial personnel. The creation of a reserve consists in analyzing the potential of employees, selecting the best employees and their training in managerial functions. The only drawback of the reserve is the length of this process.

Turning to external sources of search for managers, it is necessary for the manager to determine the technology of the process of searching and selecting candidates. If standard recruiting is not able to satisfy the organization’s need for a leader, the following targeted search technologies are applied - Executive Search and Headhunting.

Executive Search - the selection of managers who are able to effectively carry out their duties, manage people and are able to make independent decisions, as well as favorably influence the development of the organization. Such a targeted search is organized by certain recruiting companies that study the customer’s company, form an optimal candidate profile, analyze the labor market, create a list of applicants, organize personal meetings of the candidate and customer and accompany the candidate and customer at the initial stage of the labor process.

Headhunting is a search for top executives and very rare specialists. The essence of this search for leaders is to lure highly qualified personnel from other organizations. It is worth noting that only an experienced manager or employee of a recruiting company can cope with the Headhunting method, since such a search requires experience in the economic, psychological and managerial spheres. And also you need to be able to interest a specific person so that he decides to change his place of work in favor of the customer’s company.