NFIB

Obtaining Qualified Candidates, Part III: When to Hire Externally
10/ 01/ 2002

by John McConnell

Over the last few weeks, we have considered the internal sources of job candidates--generally the ones to exhaust first before seeking external candidates. Now let's turn our attention to external sources.

If you can't fill a job internally--say, because you don't have anyone ready to promote or you're looking for different skills or experience--you'll have to look outside. External candidates can bring new ideas and experience to your organization; they can show you how other companies might be accomplishing similar activities to better effect. They allow you to insist on specific qualifications rather than accepting less for convenience' sake. Hiring someone from outside prevents disruption of your current staffing.

External candidates, however, generally cost more to locate, require more time to select and hire and take longer to get up to speed on the job. As a result, they are more costly than internal candidates. Also, external hires are more likely to leave the job after only a short time.

When companies regularly select employees from outside the company, particularly for higher-paying and supervisory positions, current employees find it demoralizing as they see their hopes for rising through the ranks repeatedly quashed. This practice can breed resentment among current employees and a lack of cooperation with the newly hired.

A retail clothing store consistently hired department supervisors from outside. The current sales clerks grew increasingly resentful because they could discern no particular skill or knowledge that the new hires brought to the store. They soon developed a malicious obedience.

All new employees require time to learn the unique processes of a company and their jobs. Before they learn those, they often make mistakes. In this case, newly hired supervisors would suggest approaches that current employees knew would cause problems. However, the employees took the approach, "If that's what you want, that's what we'll do," and created innumerable problems following the directions to the letter.

It's probably best to have a policy similar to this:

Promote from within whenever possible, but retain the right to hire from outside the company to meet specific requirements.

You should promote from within when such a practice will best meet the needs of the job, benefit your company and help it fulfill its mission. You should not promote from within if the practice will cause internal problems and will not meet specific job requirements. Moreover, you need to carefully consider and recognize how you have filled jobs over time. If you have filled too many non-entry-level jobs externally without specific reasons, you should review the situation.

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John McConnell is president of McConnell, Simmons & Co., a New Jersey firm that specializes in consulting services and products for human-resources professionals. He holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in educational psychology and is the author of several books in the human resources field.

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