8 in 10 bosses look to recruit external candidates rather than promoting internally

A new survey shows that 81% of bosses do not recruit internally, and that 77% of workers feel they are suitably qualified and experienced for promotion.

The Peninsula BusinessWise survey polled 859 employees and 716 bosses from a variety of industries across the United Kingdom.

Peter Done, Managing Director of Peninsula BusinessWise told Bytestart:

"The surprising findings regarding internal and external promotions are worrying for not only employees but also for bosses themselves, as it undoubtedly consumes much more time and effort. It is also incredibly expensive to continually employ external new starters rather than promoting from within the company.

This is because an external recruit necessitates in the most part a large amount of training and bringing up to speed upon joining the company. Current members of staff however, have already gained knowledge regarding the workings, norms and abilities of the organisation as a whole due to their employment. This extensive training not only ties up key members of staff during its duration but also costs, and as the majority of SMEs cannot afford to spend money they don’t need to, it could often be seen as a misallocation of funding. Even internal promotions do require training in their new job role and duties etc. however it by no means needs to be as far-reaching.

This is not to say that bosses don’t want the best candidate possible because of course they do, and if there are no acceptable applicants within the company such a decision can be understood. However the vast majority of employees feel that they themselves are capable and serious concerns are raised if bosses are automatically bypassing them during the recruitment and promotion process."