Im looking for an office manager and wish to start recruiting straight away. Do I need to take into consideration internal candidates?
The purpose of a proper recruitment exercise is to find the widest pool of potential candidates to draw from and to avoid excluding suitable people. The question you have to ask is why would you not want to consider internal candidates?
Some companies will ring-fence recruitment to internal candidates only, on an initial basis, to see if they already have a suitable candidate in house. This allows the development and progression of existing employees, saves the expense of recruiting and generally reduces the level of training needed because the individual is already familiar with the company and most of the systems. It also helps with staff morale because your employees can see that there are career advancement opportunities in your company and that you are committed to helping your employees improve.
An additional advantage of internal candidates is that they are a known quantity. While you may not know if they can do the specific job, if it involves work they haven’t done for you before, you know what they are like in terms of personality and their method of working. You know what work they have done for you so you have some shared experience to draw on when interviewing for the role.
If you want to widen the pool to include external candidates then you can do so but there is no reason to exclude internal candidates who are just as entitled to respond to an external advert as people who are not your employees. You would normally only exclude people who have previously applied for the position if you are re-advertising following an unsuccessful recruitment exercise.
You need to draw up the job description and person specification for this role and design your interview process to allow you to select the person who best meets what you are looking for. Your internal candidates will have the same chance as everyone else and if they are not the best candidate then they will not succeed. However, the fact that you have given them the opportunity to apply and give them honest feedback as to why they did not succeed this time will let them know what they need to do to stand a better chance next time. This will also help to cut down on any resentment and resistance to the person you do select as your employees will know that they were given a fair chance.
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