November 5, 2022

Sometimes candidates — internal and external — struggle with whether to apply when a leadership role emerges. The considerations for an internal candidate can be additionally challenging. So, should you apply for that internal role?

You Generally Don’t Get What You Don’t Ask For

Let’s start with acknowledging you rarely get what you don’t ask for. Whether it’s a promotion, raise, extra resources or special assignment, waiting for it to come to you is never the recommended strategy.

And waiting to ask until you are confident you should get the promotion isn’t strong advice either. As is often referenced, women generally do not apply for roles as often if they don’t meet all of the qualifications. Men tend to not feel the same restraint.

As Tara Sophia Mohr describes in her 2014 Harvard Business Review article, Why Women Don’t Apply for Jobs Unless They’re 100% Qualified, the issue may not be that women don’t think they can do the job, but that they wouldn’t get hired for the job because they “thought that the required qualifications were… well, required qualifications.” (Imagine that!)

Overcoming Bias

This is not to suggest that all women have to do to move into leadership roles is to ask. Biases — conscious or unconscious — are real, as are structural considerations that put women at a disadvantage throughout an academic career. It’s important to acknowledge the intersectionality of identity and of bias; women of color continue to face additional biases throughout their careers. Women’s Power Gap, a think tank of the Eos Foundation, offered a 2021 report noting that while women comprise 60% of all professionals in higher ed, less than a quarter of top-earners are women and women of color are virtually nonexistent among top earners.

Acknowledging the impact of bias on a career, it’s noteworthy that it may be easier to overcome unconscious biases as an internal candidate as opposed to pursuing an external opportunity. A 2019 article in Harvard Business Review, When Medical Institutions Hire Leaders, External Female Candidates Have an Extra Disadvantage, studied 13 leading academic medical institutions and observed that while external promotions to departmental chair and dean roles were slightly more common than internal promotion, of the 10 male deans only three had been promoted internally, and of the three female deans all three had been internal promotions. While the numbers are small, the authors observe that potentially “unconscious biases against women are stronger when a female candidate is not personally known in an institution.”

This is not to suggest you should not apply for external roles! Recent trends suggest more organizations are actively looking to overcome biases in their hiring process broadly for women, people of color and members of other historically marginalized groups. While this work is ongoing, consider the benefit of being known as an internal candidate as an opportunity to further mitigate bias.

Learning Through Doing

Your job application process is rightly understood as a means to an end: You apply to get the job. But the act of applying can offer opportunities beyond the direct linear path to the job you are applying for.

Putting together your materials, writing a cover letter or a diversity statement: These can be valuable tools for reflecting on your career and aspirations. It provides the opportunity for you to do a personal audit and consider your strengths and areas you can continue to grow. Interviewing is a skill that is strengthened with practice.

Uniquely for internal applicants, putting yourself forward for a new opportunity can open up conversations about your aspirations and abilities. If you don’t get the promotion you applied for, you may still find yourself in line for a new opportunity.

You May Not Get What You Ask For

While you rarely get what you don’t ask for, you don’t always get what you ask for either. Even when you think you should.

If you want to stay at your home institution for the long term, go into the search process with a plan for how to manage the potential sting of rejection if you don’t get the promotion. Focusing on the process as a learning opportunity can help, as can honest and transparent conversations with mentors and colleagues from outside of your organization to help keep perspective.

You can’t control the hiring decisions, but you can use the process for continued growth within your organization or externally.

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For a whitepaper with tips for the internal candidate, email Sarah Gaines, associate partner, at sarah.gaines@opuspartners.net.

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Sarah Gaines
Associate Partner
Opus Partners