Question 1

How is applying for an internal role different from an external one?

Accepted Answer

The information runs in both directions, which changes everything — **you know more about the job, and they know more about you** — so the things that decide an external application matter much less, and the things that decide an internal one are frequently invisible in the process itself.

**What works in your favour:**

**Access to information.** You can talk to the hiring manager, the outgoing postholder and people in the team before applying. **Not doing this is the most common internal mistake**, because candidates assume the formal process is the whole process.

**Known delivery**, which an external candidate can only assert.

**No induction cost**, which matters to a manager under pressure.

**Understanding the real problem** the role exists to solve, which rarely appears in the advert.

**What works against you:**

**Your history follows you**, including things you have moved past.

**Being typecast** in your current function, which is the most persistent barrier — internal candidates are frequently judged on the role they hold rather than the one they could do.

**Familiarity discounting**, where known strengths are weighted less than an external candidate's unproven potential.

**Assumed knowledge.** Panels may believe they already know what you would say, so a thin application is accepted as adequate when it is not. **Write the application as though the panel does not know you** — this is the single most important adjustment.

**Existing relationships on the panel**, which cut both ways.

**What to do differently:**

**Evidence against the criteria explicitly**, without assuming anything is known. Scoring panels can only credit what is written.

**Speak to the hiring manager first**, which is normal and expected.

**Address the step up directly**, since the concern is usually whether you can operate at the next level rather than whether you are good now.

**Tell your current manager** before they hear it elsewhere.

**Ask for feedback if unsuccessful**, which is more detailed and more useful internally than externally — and ask what would need to be true next time.

**Consider the aftermath**, since you will still be working there either way.

Question 2

What is an informational interview, and how do you ask for one?

Accepted Answer

A conversation with someone working in a role, organisation or sector you are interested in, to learn rather than to ask for a job — and the distinction is the entire reason it works. Why the framing

Question 3

Why do job adverts list requirements nobody could meet?

Accepted Answer

Because job adverts are usually written as a wish list, not a specification — and understanding that changes how you should respond to them. Why they end up that way: They are assembled, not

Question 4

What is the difference between a job description and a person specification?

Accepted Answer

The job description describes the role; the person specification describes the person who could do it. They answer different questions, and reading them as one document is why applications miss the

Question 5

What does pre-employment screening actually check?

Accepted Answer

Considerably less than candidates fear and more than they expect, with the scope depending heavily on the sector and the seniority of the role rather than on a single standard process. What is almost

Question 6

How do you job search while employed without it getting out?

Accepted Answer

By controlling the three channels through which it leaks — your employer's systems, your professional network, and recruiters — and by recognising that the risk is real but manageable, since most

Question 7

How do you write a useful job advert?

Accepted Answer

By describing the job and the conditions honestly, and by removing the barriers that quietly exclude good candidates — most job adverts fail at both, which is why they attract the wrong applicants

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