🔒 Internal-only recruitment in HE: helping or hurting diversity? 🎓🤔

🔒 Internal-only recruitment in HE: helping or hurting diversity? 🎓🤔

It’s common in Higher Education for roles - especially secondments and fixed-term posts - to be advertised internally only. On paper, it makes sense: reward loyalty, reduce cost, maybe even fill roles quickly. But is this well-meaning approach unintentionally limiting diversity and fresh thinking?

📉 Fewer external applicants = fewer new perspectives
🌍 Reduced visibility to underrepresented groups
♻️ Promoting within closed networks = limited challenge to status quo

While internal development matters, over-reliance on internal-only hiring can restrict opportunities for talented professionals outside the institution and may even conflict with EDI goals.

So, how can universities strike a balance?
✅ Use internal-only rounds for genuine progression or redeployment
✅ Open up roles that impact strategy, services or students
✅ Work with partners who can widen reach without compromising quality

At Gray & Associates, we believe inclusive hiring doesn’t mean slowing down - it means casting the net wider and finding people who reflect the communities universities serve.

Let’s open the doors ... Diversity depends on it.