How to Choose Between Promoting from Within or Hiring Externally

When a key role opens up in your business, the big question becomes: Do we promote someone from within the team, or hire externally?

In this episode, we walk through the pros and cons of each option and share how to make the right choice for your specific situation. The decision isn’t as simple as loyalty vs. fresh ideas. It’s about finding the best possible fit for the role and the future of your business.

We cover:

• Why every hiring decision should start with a clear role description
• The danger of settling for “good enough” when promoting internally
• How to run a fair process for both internal and external candidates
• When hiring from outside can bring in fresh thinking and new perspectives
• Why promoting from within still requires full onboarding and training
• How succession planning and team development make these decisions easier

Whether you’re filling your first leadership role or adding to an established team, this episode will help you make the decision that sets your business up for long-term success.

If you want support hiring the right way and building a team that performs at the highest level, check out our Thrive360 consulting and Empower360 leadership coaching. We’ll help you develop your team, design fair hiring processes, and create a succession plan that works.

“Good enough is the enemy of great. Always hire for the best possible fit.” – Anna Angelova

Transcript for “Promoting from Within vs. Hiring Externally?”

The transcript below was automatically generated. Please ignore any errors or inconsistencies in the text.

Anna Angelova   0:05
Good morning. This is More Than Just Task Management, your favorite daily podcast where I, Anna Angelova, business coach and consultant, and my co-host, Yoris Minusman, the business consultant. We help you build a thriving business by showing up every single day and discussing something.
Think that every small business is facing, whether at the beginning of the journey or at some point of the journey. And today, Thursday, we have a very interesting topic. But before we dive into it, hey, Joris, how are you doing?

Jores Minasvand   0:39
Hi Anna, I’m doing very well. How about you?

Anna Angelova   0:42
Fantastic. One of my other favorite topics, people. So today we are diving into something that even a lot of our clients we work with and people we talk with.
One direct.
Do I hire from within or externally? Like do I promote from within or hire externally? And it’s a very valid question because at some point when you need to fill a role, of course if you’re wondering what do I do, is it someone? Can someone within the existing teams?
Step up and and to take the on the responsibilities or do I get outside and hire? And of course like there are pros and cons. There are a lot of things that can be considered in this situation and the answer.
You you know of because you are a business owner and you’ve done so much already and you know that the answer is depends. Like whether you promote from Houdini or you hire externally, the answer is it really depends and to help you actually figure out what it means for you.
And how to proceed in a situation like this, ultimately going back to the basics when you have a role to fill.
What do you start with? You start with the what this role is, right? What’s the description? What’s the purpose? Like why? Why is this? Why do you need someone like whether it’s?
A customer success manager or if it’s a sales person, whatever it is, why do you need this? So ultimately you start with the description of this role, like what they need to do, what they need to achieve.
And one of the things like we work with our clients when we help them with consulting, when we help them build their businesses and especially with the hiring, it’s in in addition to the skills, it’s also attitude, right? Like how should this person show up? Like what are those?
I don’t want to call them soft skills because they’re not exactly soft skills, but what kind of person do you need like with certain values? Like all these things, like think about all these things and ultimately.
Once you have this, once you know this, this is where you can look into OK promotion or hire externally and promotion is in a way hiring. Do you have someone within your team?
Who is actually good enough to fill that role? And one of the things is as a business owner, as the leader of the business, you don’t want to settle for good enough. You oh this, this is a decent, you know, because sometimes.
Sometimes like good enough is the enemy of great, and don’t be afraid to make some people unhappy. Maybe by going outside, by looking for talent outside, because ultimately you want to have in every single position.
In your business, you want to have the best possible players, the best possible people like the the best.
Team in general so.
As I said, it all starts with the basics and the basics are the description of the role, who are you looking for? And then from there you can decide, OK, it’s someone from within. And of course I think is that when you promote from within like it opens up another gap, right? Because like the person who gets promoted.
Probably leaves a gap that you need still need to fill in. So there are a few things that you need to think about. But before we get into this, Joris, I’m wondering actually your thoughts so far.

Jores Minasvand   4:51
You put it very well and my answer would have been yes, but you said depends. So which I think they at the end they they mean the same thing and the the there are a lot of flavors of the of the depends.
For example, are you hiring for a single contributor position or a managerial position? Usually for single, it’s easier if it’s a single contributor position, but if it’s managerial, there are other things to.
To consider and the higher the level of the manager you’re hiring, the more important the considerations are. For example, there are philosophies that say you do not promote from within for the C suit.
I’ve seen a lot of corporations make this mistake. They promoted from within and it was it’s been a disaster, especially for publicly traded companies. The reason is you need fresh blood. The second thing that it depends on is what is the state of the the company.
And what is the effect of that role? Are you trying to build a role to get the company out of hot water? For example, for a small company, your operations may be in trouble, right? So you you’re if you’re thinking about getting an operations manager, you want an operations manager.
So the two thoughts are promoting from within people who are there already. They have the, they know the company, they know, et cetera, but they don’t have fresh ideas. Some of them have been there for five. You wouldn’t promote someone that’s been there 6-6 months. So you go to someone that’s been there 5-10 years.
These people have been out of the industry on the market for five to 10 years and if they’re not proactive people, then they may not know what’s the recent business trends. So it depends on a lot of things, but I think your approach, I like your approach, Anna.
Treat it as a new position. Write down the role description. Write down all the requirements, even if you’re promoting from within. If you are going to have three sets of interviews for wiring from outside, you do three sets of interviews for promoting from within. Don’t just say, oh, you’re next.
Let’s go also the if you’re promoting from within, treat this person as a as a new hire. So whatever training they need, train them, put them through trainings. Again, you need to realize that this person, although they have been with the company for 10 years.
They’re now in a brand new position. So there’s a learning curve, there’s hand holding required, supervision, you know, training, all of that is required.

Anna Angelova   7:46
Absolutely. It’s a brand new hire. Even from within, it’s a brand new hire. Now the caveat of course of this is when you promote from within and like you need to fill the role for the person that you just promoted that in a way you have to instead of filling one position.
So you’re now filling two positions and again, depending on what’s going on and if this is really the correct choice for you, it’s worth it. It’s worth it for the business, for the big picture. Strategically, I do want to.
Talk about something George that you mentioned that that idea that especially for the sea level that you don’t promote from within one of the problems that and and I see the idea of someone from the outside with fresh ideas and things like this.
One of the the problems that a lot of companies don’t have and they one of the problems that a lot of companies have is that they don’t have proper succession plan and proper proper path for for their superstars.
And I’m not not just talking about corporations like we see this everywhere, small, mid-sized businesses. And the other thing you mentioned is also again like with someone who has been with your company for five or six years. And I know this goes a little bit into a different conversation, but.
Are you training your people? Do they get the the latest, like you said, Joris, the latest industry and business insights? So they are actually equipped when an opportunity comes for them to get promoted, for them to really be a contender. Because as I said, the last thing you want is to settle for all this is good enough.
You want to get the best possible person and The thing is that you might open the process for both. And yes, have people from within the company apply, but then also open it for external candidates and see who’s the best.
And really look for the best and sometimes which can be quite demanding. And I know that most likely you’re not doing this. Another thing is that when we talk about the best, sometimes the best is already someone who is employed somewhere.
Employ somewhere, employed at your competitors, employed at your suppliers or vendors or or or clients and just like think about one of the ways I think about love thinking about.
Recruiting is in terms of how the professional sports team do this.
That they don’t. They don’t settle for the best that’s available. They negotiate and they go and find the best that they they they can have and they want to have. And sometimes when it’s come to, especially like hiring externally, you might want to.
I don’t want to use the word coach, but coach someone who’s already working somewhere, who’s not even looking. But anyway, I know this is going into a bit of a different conversation. Joris, what you shared is absolutely like spot on.
And again, we started with depends. It depends like hiring from within, take a promoting from within or hiring externally. It really depends pros and cons on both sides. But as long as you have and we talked about SOPs the other day.
As long as you have the process, a solid process where, as I said, it starts with the description, like you make sure that you’re looking for the best person, you will be able to make the the choice. You’ll be able to make the right choice when it comes to promoting.
Within or hiring externally and if you are struggling with this, reach out. I will add the links to two of our services. Actually if you want us to come and help you personally, if we do some of that work with you to help you figure out.
About how to hire properly, how to train your team as well, and how to make sure that you have an A team. Dr. 360 is a great starting point and I will also share the link for Empower 360, which is a business and leadership coaching service that we have. This is more to to help.
You as the business owner, this can also help you flush some flush some of these things out and get ideas and move forward the right way. So I’ll add this again, we’re here to help you and some of these conversations that we have.
Excuse me, while they’re amazing and uh, full of insights, if I say so myself.
We can go as deep, like so deep for for like what, 1015 minutes. This is how deep we can go and we can discuss every single scenario. And you might have questions that are all, but what about me? What about my particular case? How do I choose this way or that way?
And again, This is why we have these services and the the work we do with our clients and you can always jump on a call with us and discuss this as well. So anyway, I’ll add the links if you are interested and if you want us to help you accelerate this journey.
We are here to help you and yeah, anything else, Joris?

Jores Minasvand   13:34
No, I think this was very insightful. I really like what the topic. I think this week was a very good week as far as topics go. I think we are, you know, starting to hit the the real like core of all the businesses.
And I’m really hoping that that our audience will listen and take advantage and again contact us if you need help.

Anna Angelova   13:58
And the week is not over, by the way. We are coming back tomorrow with a topic that although we’re thinking it might be useful for people who are just starting, if you are a business owner where you’ve had your business for a while now, it might be a good idea for you to listen to this as well. So tomorrow.
We are talking about setting boundaries with clients so they respect your time and.

Jores Minasvand   14:23
Yes, get a baseball bat and go after them. No, I’m just kidding.

Anna Angelova   14:27
Yep, turn off your phone and yeah, no, seriously, setting boundaries with clients is important for your own sanity, for for your own well-being, for the well-being of your family as well.
So whether you’re just starting or you have an established business, that conversation tomorrow is a must listen. So the week is not over. Join us tomorrow and in the meantime, check Thrive 360 and Empower 360. And yes, we love our 360 names.
And we look forward to chatting with you and and hearing more about you. So, yeah, this is it for today. Thanks, J.S. See you tomorrow.

Jores Minasvand   15:14
Thanks, Anna. See you tomorrow.

Anna Angelova   15:16
Play.