Jobs going to internal applicants

[Polarbearflavour]

I’ve been for two interviews recently where I had great post interview feedback but the jobs went to internal candidates - who were already doing the job on a temporary basis. Seems a complete waste of time for me to take annual leave from work to go to interviews for jobs that I’m never going to get.

Has happened to me several times now.

Same here. Does my head in.

No problem with the idea that the internal candidate is the best one, they often will be, especially if they are already doing the job. I just don't understand why you would advertise the role externally when you have a strong internal candidate?

I try to tell myself that all interviews are good practise etc but it does get frustrating.

Because they have to advertise it externally even if they know theyre going to give it to the person already doing the job

In the Civil Service for example, the first round of advertising is internal candidates only. If they don’t have anyone suitable, the advert then goes external. Same at a large bank I used to work at, loads of internal
jobs . The Council and university in my city also advertise many jobs as internal applicants only so surely they don’t HAVE to advertise externally?

Yes, quite often we have to advertise roles externally due to funding rules but if an internal candidate is already doing a lot of the work within the organisation it's quite likely they'll perform better at interview.

I think they have to by law?

I am bound by my HR to advertise externally. Even when we have someone seconded into the post and unless to someone external is going to totally blow me out of the water they are not going to get it.

I hate wasting people's time but have no choice.

For example we run some projects funded by Big Lottery. These have to be advertised externally whether or not there is a strong internal candidate.

Just done a search in my city for jobs - the NHS, university and Council all have quite a few jobs saying internal applicants only. Can anybody shed any light on why some places do this and other companies do all recruitment externally?

There is no legal requirement to advertise a job - if it's a large employer they might have a policy to do just that, but they don't need to.

OTOH, you sometimes get employers who will advertise even when the internal cover is doing a great job to 'see what is out there'

It is frustrating OP, good luck for the next one

I’m actually temping in a job now via an agency. I’ve been told that the job “will go perm” within 6 months and I’ll have to apply for it if I want the role but I will have a “very good” chance of being successful. Not sure whether it’ll be advertised internally or externally but knowing my luck they’ll offer it to somebody else for the first time in history.

Teaching is really bad for this. Unless you get an 'acting' job then you'll never get promoted. And then generally 'acting' jobs are only advertised internally. I'm doomed.

There's no legal requirement to advertise externally but obviously different organisations will have different policies on it and a lot of people do think it is good practice to always advertise externally. My own view is that advertising externally is only good practise when it is genuine, otherwise it is just a massive waste of time for everyone.

I hear ya op. Have been to final interviews when the internal person got the role.
Complete waste of time and energy.

We can’t apply for jobs internally that are higher grades than ours so have to wait till it goes to external applications after a week to apply for it.

Cross-posted there!

It's down to company policy really - some like to advertise jobs internally in the first instance in the hope of improving promotion prospects for employees. Large employers, as you've noticed OP, often do this.

If you only recruit internally though (or from friends of friends) you are limiting the potential pool of applicants, so advertising enables a wider choice of candidates to choose from often far too many

It stinks OP. And its very common - wouldn't be so bad but you spend hour prepping for the interview, presentation, dealing with all the nerves and stress that come with it - and when you find out (or if you find out) they are recruiting also within for the same thing - it all seems like a total waste of time. Sometimes its not what you know, but who you know...

Its good practice to be honest. A total pain but if your workforce is one or more of the following:

Primarily one gender
Primarily one race
Primarily one social class
Primarily of similar education

And with tiers of management that are similar in background as well

then the company could be missing out on alternative candidates and eventually may become indirectly discriminatory. If you are an accounting firm that is mostly male, how do you recruit more women? etc.

Total pain but can result in better workforces.

I totally understand your frustration but I can give a different perspective. I have a role vacant at the moment and someone filling it as interim. He is good, but not quite what I want in some areas. So I am going for open application and he will be assessed against other applicants. If the best external is the same then the interim will get it because he knows the business. But the external could be a better fit.

I have withdrawn from job applications in the past because of this. There are many organisations eg universities, where it is a legal requirement that the job has to be open to outside applicants, and that an individual wasn't just be offered it internally.

Now I am all for internal promotions, and if someone can do the job (and often IS doing the job) and the Powers-that-be want to keep them, then that's fine - BUT - I'm not prepared to waste my time and energy applying for posts where the appointment is a done deal. Apart from anything else, it means that I will never know whether I didn't get the job because the internal candidate was genuinely the best suited or because s/he is in situ, everybody likes them, and the boss prefers the devil they know.

It's not fair on applicants who may have put a lot of work into preparing for interview (and getting their hopes up, and travelling to the venue etc) when there is no realistic chance of their getting the job.

I gave my apologies and withdrew from one interview once because I had reliably heard that an internal candidate was ear-marked for the position, but because of the stupid fannying-about policy of our organisation (it was in another department for the university I already worked at) she couldn't be appointed without an interview, and she couldn't be interviewed unless there was at last one other applicant (ie - me!).

I got a really snotty phone call from a secretary (not even the department head*) complaining that I was stopping them from filling the position, and that this person was now left in limbo and had been doing the job and was entitled to know where she stood etc. I presume that she and the secretary were either particularly pally, or that it was now causing difficulties for the secretary otherwise she wouldn't have got involved. Whatever the reason, I just politely declined. I have no idea whether the other woman was permanently appointed or not.

*I am not being snobby when I mention the call was from a secretary - it's just that a secretary doesn't have the authority to hire and fire, and so had no real reason to try to get me to attend. Perhaps management had asked her to - if so, it was the wrong thing to do.

I can understand when large organisations say "internal applicants only", because they use this as a way to avoid redundancies.

I completely agree OP so frustrating I wish at the very least they could warn you and you can decide if you will continue

Saying that twice now I've gotten the role over the internal applicant who had been doing the role , albeit these were extremely niche roles in a specific industry where it was very hard to beat a candidate with specific experience as only a few of us in the country had that

I still wish I'd known though because what happened both times is the internal candidate was vile for 6 months until they left, in future I probably wouldn't choose to go through all of that and would pull out

My old role is being done by a temp. The company are advertising it externally due to company policy. But the manager has said it will almost certainly be offered to the temp as she knows the job and it’s too much hassle to train a new person. So people will be spending time doing the application form online and taking time off work when they won’t get the job. Unless they are in my manager’s words “completely amazing with several years of events management.”

In the remote ish area I’m living in, there is high unemployment and relatively few jobs - but there are very few candidates with the relevant experience and qualifications applying for the jobs. When I’ve been going for jobs, I’ve been told in interviews that they don’t get many people with my kind of CV and background applying for them. I’m not particularly amazing

When I worked in London, there were lots of jobs to apply for but loads of really well qualified people going for them.

It is so annoying when this happens. They know who they want to employ but go through the motions with external advertising - very unfair on those who gear themselves up for interview and take trouble with their application. This happened all the time in the LA I worked for.

There are many organisations eg universities, where it is a legal requirement that the job has to be open to outside applicants
It might be policy but it’s never a legal requirement.

Drives me crazy! I applied for a LA role recently which fitted my experience perfectly, took time to prepare thoroughly, booked flights to get to the interview, which went really well. Didn't get it! I then find out from a LinkedIn stalk that it went to an internal applicant who had pretty much no relevant experience, but was already working within the team in a support function. Complete waste of my time, money and effort when they were never going to give me the role anyway. Grrrr!!