Internal Advertising with current agency staff

[sjs]

Hi

We are currently experiencing situations whilst advertising internally, agency staff are applying for the role. They are issued with "staff numbers" to allow ID cards etc to be created.

Just interested in what peoples views are when advertising internally, whether you allow agency/temp staff to apply, if not how do you word this (if you do even how do you word this?)

Look forward to replies.

Thanks

[NicoleL]

For our organisation, where there is an internal advertisement, the note is made that only direct employees of the organisation are eligible to apply for the role. And then if we are asked about agency staff, we state that they are directly employed by the agency, not our organisation.

Once all applications are received, we do a quick check to ensure that they are our employees who have applied, and not agency staff, and if they are ineligible to apply, we advise them accordingly via a letter.

Hope this helps.

Cheers
Nicole

[Pete]

Hi everyone.
A couple of thoughts, leading off with a question - Other than in a restructing situation where you need to protect existing staff who may be loosing their established role, why would you want to limit the potential pool of applicants? (especially during the oft cited "war for talent").

If an "agency" staff member is good enough to work for you at agency rates, surely they are worth considering for a permanent role? I'd say you should consider them along with internal applicants (and then decide if they are worth the introduction finders fee that the agency will want to charge).

Other than in the example above (restructuring) our practice is to allow any applicant who is aware of one our roles to apply for it. Many vacancies are advertised "internally only" (i.e. on our staff intranet and in a vacancy circular) and some staff interpret this to mean only internal applicants will be considered, but in fact we make no secret that we will consider all applicants on merit (and a lot of externals who want to work her comein and pick up copie sof our internal vacny circular).

Cheers

Pete

[Moz]

I can fully understand why you might want to restrict applications to internal staff. For a start it is good to be seen to be offering the opportunity to internal staff first and secondly you might not have the budget to pay the fees incurred when you hire an agency employee.

A word of caution though, don't appoint an internal person just because they are an already an employee. Make sure the internal applicant is a good fit for the role.

Cheers,
Moz

[Pete]

Moz - I agree with your points, you should always recognise the talent already within your organisation, whenever possible. But allowing agency (or other external applicants) to be considered gives you the opportunity to select the best person for the job, and to compare what your internal applicant has to offer or might need to develop before being truly ready to step up.

Having said that, there are plenty of times that an organisation might publicise positions internally only, knowing full well that they have an existing pool of talent capable of the step up (particularly if you are running leadership development or succession management programmes). The message you want to send to your employees will dictate what you do when calling for applications, but the actual result (who gets appointed rather than who you consider) will provide the strongest message. After all - what could be better than being able to say "once again we went to the market, and once again we found our own staff who have been through our development programme to be the best candidates for the role" ?

Also, if there are strong candidates out there - an agency employee or in the wider community, surely you want to keep them interested and signal to them that you consider them to be skilled and worth consideration for employment with you? A similar, yet subtly different message to the one you are sending to your interal applicants?

I guess that's another example of the balancing act between the various shades of grey that we in HR are expected to walk on behalf of the organisation?

Cheers

Pete