Do You Post Pending Promotions as Open Positions?

Caroliso

We are in the habit of requiring hiring managers to post all open positions, including those for which there is a leading internal candidate in mind. We post the latter type solely as a way of disclosing to employees positions that are under consideration. It is a response to folks who say "gee, if i'd known that position was available, I might have applied for it" after learning of Sarah's promotion into a new position.
Of course you know the realities of these situtions. The position may have been created expressly for Sarah to grow into, or it may have been one the possibility of which only emerged out of Sarah's high performance of her existing job, etc. So it's a bit of a fiction to call it an "open position", but it does seem to have satisfied concerns about positions being filled before staff even knew it was a possibility.
Posting does create a dilemma, in that managers wind up fielding internal inquiries about the position when they want Sarah for the position. Noting "strong internal candidate" seemed like a good solution, but of course that sends a message "don't even bother to apply". Not putting something like that leaves Sarah in the position of having folks say to her "this sounds like your job, why is it open?" Etc.
So my question is, do others have a better way of handling proposed positions for which there is already a heavy favorite?

Gillian

I don't think that there is a better way. Your process is better than the "secret promotion system" but we will never reach the point where there are no favorites for a position. It is perfectly logical for a manager to have preferences for a particular individual because the employee has worked for the person, or for other reasons, so long as they are not illegal ones. The best that we can hope for is that a manager will be open to the idea, that just maybe, there is a qualified individual somewhere else in the organization and that the manager will give that individual consideration.

Don D

Whatever your practice is, it should not be allowed to contain tricks or pretend-practices or illusions of fairness if they aren't reality. You should honestly portray your practice just as it is. This will work: A written policy statement that clearly states that a manager may fill any opening through one or more of the following methods - open recruitment from within, recruitment from outside the company, filling the position with a preferred candidate with no recruitment, advertising, or selection of a candidate from any other source available to the company. There is no good reason to promote your practices and policies as fair and open to all unless that's what they are. I agree with giving the hiring authority all the flexibility available to fill positions in any legal manner. I've also encouraged managers in training sessions to participate in the internal announcement process, telling them "You will be amazed at the talent in the company that you didn't know existed. The internal announcement process will reveal that talent to you more often than you think."

NaeNae55

Unless you have a really large department, I think it is almost impossible to create a position without some idea of who will probably fill it. The purpose of posting a job, however, should be more than giving everyone a chance to look at it and apply. If you don't regularly look at your employee's records (and few do), you are likely to forget that Joe got a special award for this or that Sally has been going to school nights to get a degree in that. By all means, go ahead and post even if you are pretty sure who will get the job (I don't see this as dishonest at all; merely forward thinking), but make sure you really look at the other applicants to see if there is something about them that you forgot, or perhaps never knew, that will make them a better choice.

Don: in every new position or RIF I have been involved in the employer always had a strong idea of who would fit where before they posted the job(s) or determined who to lay off. During my last RIF, all jobs were abolished and new ones were established. All employees applied for those positions and the best "fit" were selected. The powers that be would have had to have been pretty dumb not to plan those positions around both what they needed and who was best able to meet those needs. I don't think they were in anyway dishonest to plan ahead. The way you run into trouble planning ahead is when you close your mind to other possibilities and make selections based on personal likes and dislikes rather than qualifications. Just because a company ends up with who they expected to end up with, doesn't mean they are automatically cheating anywhere.

Ok. I'll get off my soap box. Thanks for listening. x:D (You know, I can't help thinking that they came up the shortcut for the big smile while thinking of you, Don. After all, it needs a big D to make it work.)

Don D

I don't know whether or not we've actually disagreed. I don't think so. I want to be certain that my thought was correctly expressed. And that is: If the employer has absolutely no intention of earnestly soliciting applications from his work force, and is merely posting something so he can later say he did so, then he is a fraud and nothing will ruin morale quicker. I would not suggest disguising an effort to find out who completed what training as allowing people to put in for internal promotions. Otherwise, I suppose we are saying the same thing. Of course it is perfectly alright for an employer to have what we call a 'preferred candidate' going in to the process. The real caution flags go up if you're under an EEOC Conciliatory Agreement or you're a state agency required to post and solicit and advertise, etc. Then, not being able to show that you fairly considered all who applied can easily cause you to drop your paddle in the creek. x:D