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How recruiting software can support internal mobility

June 9, 2022
 
iCIMS Staff
7 min read

For many employers, sourcing internally has become a top priority for combatting the competitive labor market. 

In a recent report from OpenView Partners, 21% of the executives surveyed shared that the lack of internal mobility opportunities pushed them to look for new work elsewhere. Employees care about mobility, and with The Great Reshuffle continuing to impact employers, this topic is more important than ever. 

Keeping top talent in-house through internal mobility can help you stop retention issues and create more alignment in your workplace. By leveraging modern recruitment technology, you can help current employees fill specialized roles on your team, reduce training costs, improve workplace morale, and get the right talent into the right positions. 

In this post we’ll cover how to:

  • Build an internal talent pipeline through an opportunity marketplace 
  • Cultivate a company culture that supports growth and internal mobility 
  • Help your team transition into new roles, you can create a company that promotes internal mobility. 

But how do you ensure your current recruiting software supports internal mobility? 

3 areas of opportunity for internal mobility

According to a recent survey conducted by Gartner, only about half of employees even know about internal job openings. Companies have a communication problem, and it’s prompting great employees to leave organizations. 

Your organization can proactively engage employees before they decide to look for work elsewhere. Building an internal mobility strategy can transform your culture, inspire your employees to grow, and help retain your talent.  

 Here are three main areas of opportunity for companies who want to invest in internal mobility: 

  1. Build your pipeline and recruit from within.

First, you want to use all of your recruiting resources to engage current employees and make sure they know about potential opportunities. Keep them updated about any openings within the organization, even if you don’t think they’d be interested in advancement.

Here are some more best practices for building your internal talent pool:

    • Use your candidate relationship management platform to promote product training, mentorship programs, and opportunities for employees of any role or rank to develop new skills. 
    • Create an opportunity marketplace to make posting internal roles easier. 
    • Utilize AI to help identify internal candidate opportunities using skills-based talent matching. 
    • Focus on marketing internal positions through focused email and text message campaigns 

 Internal employees can also be a great resource for helping you find stellar external candidates: 

    • Use success stories to attract new external candidates via internal talent community newsletters or social posts. 
    • Create an employee referral program to find candidates that your employees know. 

Find out how to unlock the power of your workforce in iCIMS guide to talent mobility and advancement.
 

  1. Cultivate a work environment that encourages internal mobility and advancement.

Unfortunately, internal mobility isn’t common. Gartner found that only one-third of their survey respondents looked for a job internally first. By failing to highlight opportunities internally, companies may inadvertently cultivate a culture that discourages internal mobility.

Several factors cause candidates to steer clear of internal positions, such as pay and office politics. Companies can address these issues with employees and follow up with technology that makes it simple for employers to choose internal candidates. 

For example, create an employee career site to make it easier for hiring managers to find internal candidates with in-demand skills and for employees to move internally. In addition, you can use an internal career site to share pictures, employee-generated videos, and success stories from around the organization. Customers who add iCIMS Video Studio for employee video testimonials or iCIMS Digital Assistant for on-site chat can create for their employees the same stellar candidate experience that their external candidates enjoy.  

  1. Train and redeploy employees into new roles.

Finally, companies should help employees transition into new organizational roles. Taking on a new position is scary because team dynamics shift overnight. Even a horizontal or lateral career move can cause stress for an employee. 

Knowledge sharing and documentation help pave the way for employees to change positions or move departments. Cross-training employees is a low-cost way to preserve institutional insights. It’s also an excellent way to ensure you retain your best talent.

As employees learn about other opportunities, provide them with a clear path to growth and future success. You want team members to be engaged and continuously innovating at your organization. Cross-training shouldn’t feel like an extra burden. Instead, it helps employees find what other jobs or roles they may be passionate about.

Once employees are in their new positions, ensure they are appropriately onboarded and give them the resources they need to take on the new job. For example, help them navigate team dynamic shifts and ensure they can access any new tools or funds required to do their job. Hopefully, your organization’s initial knowledge sharing and documentation focus will set team members up for success. 

 

Key takeaways

As you build your workforce, it’s critical to see how your current talent acquisition platform supports unbiased and data-driven decisions and helps support your internal growth goals. (Dive into more stories, strategies, and tactics for diversity and inclusion in recruiting here.)

By focusing on building an internal talent pipeline through an opportunity marketplace, cultivating a company culture that supports growth, and helping your team transition into new roles, you can create a company culture that promotes internal mobility.

Learn more about how the iCIMS Talent Cloud helps talent teams create authentic conversations with employees and inspire them to grow their careers internally. Visit the iCIMS Opportunity Marketplace. 

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