Promote From Within or Hire Outside? Here’s How to Decide

So, you have an open leadership or management position at your company? Do you promote an existing member of staff or hire someone new to do the job?

This is a tough question to answer, and it is worth assessing all the pros and cons before you make a decision. Ultimately, you need to look at all the options available to you before settling on the right option for you.

Here are a few benefits of each approach which will hopefully help you when you are making your final decision.

 

Promote From Within

First of all, let’s cover the advantages of promoting from within. Your current employees know your business well, especially if they have been with your organization for a number of years.

There will be less of a learning curve as they know the way that things work and can get up to speed with a management position more quickly. If there is any technical or product knowledge required, they are likely to already have this.

If your company has a policy of promoting from the inside, staff members are more likely to stay as they know that there are opportunities to progress.

Software like www.rolepoint.com is making this easier to do than ever before. If you constantly hire external candidates, this can end up being quite disheartening for your team and they could start looking elsewhere for jobs.

Promoting from the inside also ensures that you know the person who you are giving responsibility to. You know all about their attitude and job performance, as well as how reliable they are. You also understand their potential for improvement and development along the way.

 

Hire Outside

Before you set yourself up to promote from within, here are a couple of advantages to hiring outside. First of all, it may be the case that your current workforce lacks the skills to be in leadership positions.

You may even put your company at risk because you lose valuable employees who were not cut out for management roles. Evaluate your current team carefully before you take the decision to promote from within.

If the skills that you require simply aren’t there, hiring outside may be the best option.

Another big reason why you might decide to hire from outside is that you are committed to making a big change to your company, and you need this fresh talent to help shake things up.

Perhaps you are looking to open up a new department or release an alternative product range. A leader with a fresh perspective and alternative experience may end up being very useful.

 

Make Your Choice

Hopefully, you now feel in a position that things are a little clearer to you when you are making this important decision about promoting from within or hiring external talent.

Ultimately, you should take the time to make a choice which is right for your company no matter which way you go.

Does your company promote within or hirer externally?  I know for my company we like to do both.  We tend to find people who fit most job within but there tend to be those times when you need someone with a particular set of skills.

So how does your company hire and fill jobs within your company?  Share your thoughts and comments below.

Cheers!