How is applying for an internal job with your current employer different from being an external applicant?
Many companies like to say that they promote from within and if your current employer has a job opening that you’re interested in, it’s possible that you might have an advantage over an external candidate(s) if they have a policy of promoting internally.
Certainly, if you have a good reputation within your company, getting an internal job interview for the position might mean you have a better than average chance of getting the job. If you’re happy with your current employer and would like to move up the ladder, it probably doesn’t hurt to think about this and plan your rise within the company in advance.
When I had my first job out of university, I worked in the business marketing department of a company with around 5,000 staff members. It was clearly a large company and there were many opportunities to work in other departments if one so desired. One area I was interested in was sales and the good news was that my group worked closely with one area of the direct sales group. I was regularly exposed to several managers in the sales department and my work benefitted their group so I was able to build up a good reputation within the sales group amongst both the management and sales members.
At one point during a quarterly meeting of the business marketing group, one of the sales managers I worked with attended our meeting to give public recognition to one of the members of our group so I was interested to see who this person was and why they were being recognized.
It turns out that the person being recognized was me, for a monthly series of industry sales guides I was writing. The sales manager gave me public recognition in front of our group of about 100 staff members and thanked me for the work I’d done that had benefitted his group.
I found that shortly thereafter, the number of people who were reading the sales guides I was writing increased and people began to recognize me as the person responsible for them.
In this instance, I started building up a good name within different functional groups within our company which was good because as I’d mentioned earlier, sales was one area I was interested in. My next step was to let one of the sales managers know that I was interested to move into a sales-type role and ask for his advice as to the best way to achieve it.
I’d already let my own manager know that I hoped to move into sales and he was supportive of it, so there was no chance it looked like I was secretly looking for a new job without his knowledge. Fortunately this was a company that did tend to promote from within and my direct manager wanted me to plan where in the company I wanted to go next.
Keep this in mind when applying for an internal job within your company. Should your current manager know about it before you start applying for other jobs within the company? Your current employer might have a protocol that you should be aware of in cases like this.
In my case, my current manager would have acted as a reference of sorts for any internal jobs I’d have applied for which would obviously have benefitted me. The fact that the sales manager knew me would have helped, too.
Conversely, applying for an internal job probably also would have meant that I’d have been expected to know more about the company and issues/problems that it faced since I was already working there, moreso than an external candidate who didn’t work there.
Keep this in mind too when applying for an internal job within your current employer.
Also be prepared to get turned down and watch them hand the job to someone else – either an internal or external candidate – and don’t get discouraged. That was what happened to me the first time I applied for a sales job in the direct sales group I’d done work for. They found a more experienced internal candidate who had made his desire to join the group well known, and sooner than I had.
