When Selecting Between Internal and External Candidates, Give the Insider the Edge

When selecting talent for a critical position, leaders often evaluate talent from inside and outside the organization.

You would think internal candidates would have a leg up in this selection process. After all, they have a track record within the existing organization, and their skills and talents are well known and proven.

But external candidates have a unique allure.

Leaders like the promise and potential of something new. External hires come with an ambiguity that allows leaders to project hope and possibility.

In addition to bringing new ideas and fresh perspectives, external candidates lack legacy alliances and rivalries, allowing them to deliver immediately without getting caught up in organizational politics.

As a result, external hires often promote change and execute faster than an internal candidate.

Hiring from the outside also signals that the organization is serious about making changes rather than incremental improvement. Such hires typically reset standards and help to recalibrate what great performance looks like.

Because they don’t have to defend past decisions or preserve legacy narratives, they can often chart new paths without meeting resistance.

But for all the outsider’s advantages, good leaders wisely give an edge to internal talent.

In an equal foot race, the call must go to the internal candidate.

Why? Because the blemishes and warts of the internal candidate are well known.

There are no optimal candidates without flaws and skill tradeoffs. As much as they look exciting and promising, the shortcomings of external candidates are not known fully.

Even after conducting thorough background checks and speaking with references, it is always less clear how the external candidate will fit and what deficiencies they will arrive with.

So, the best leaders operate from a rule of thumb: To be selected, the external candidate must be one full step higher in experience, knowledge, and skill than the internal candidate.

This offsets the knowledge gap between how well the internal candidate is known and how unfamiliar the weaknesses of the external candidate are.

Selecting internal talent rewards continuity and loyalty, which builds trust, but that doesn’t trump superior talent from outside the organization.

Leaders must select the most skillful and talented candidate they can find. By giving an edge to the internal candidate, externals must meet a higher bar. The best news is that they often do.