I think the biggest reason is that the company already knows the person is good at their current job, and already have the experience and knowledge to do the job well with no more training.
If you move the internal person and hire someone to backfill, you have two people who need to be trained and who might not be a good fit at for the particular job.
> If you move the internal person and hire someone to backfill, you have two people who need to be trained and who might not be a good fit at for the particular job.
I have 1 opening at my company.
Someone internally transfers to fill it. I still have 1 opening at my company.
Alternatively, someone externally joins and fills it, and the person who was unhappy and looking to transfer leaves shortly after instead for an outside role. I still have 1 opening at my company.
Except in the first scenario the person transferring is most likely familiar with internal tools, practices, systems, deployment, culture, goes on and on. Not only that, I have tangible, full fidelity data on their performance in the form of artifacts produced for their current team. Externally, I'd need to rely on data collected in their interview process.
I have 1 opening at my company. I set up a team to handle the hiring process for that position. They choose an internal candidate, who then transfers. I still have 1 opening, despite having completed the hiring process for the open position.
Being rejected from an internal position didn't guarantee that the person would quit, just increased the likelihood. From an "expected hiring committees" perspective, having an internal transfer guarantees two hiring processes. Having an external hire, provided the number of internal candidates is somwehat low, should result in (on average) less than two hiring processes.
>Except in the first scenario the person transferring is most likely familiar with internal tools, practices, systems, deployment, culture, goes on and on. Not only that, I have tangible, full fidelity data on their performance in the form of artifacts produced for their current team. Externally, I'd need to rely on data collected in their interview process.
This part I fully agree with. It could definitely turn out that the benefits of an internal transfer more than outweigh the increase in resources used on hiring.
I get it, and don’t think it is a smart long term choice to not hire internally.
I was just trying to think about reasons a company might choose not to. How much training you have to do for the internal transfer is going to depend on how similar the old and new job are.
If you move the internal person and hire someone to backfill, you have two people who need to be trained and who might not be a good fit at for the particular job.