Kari Nixon, The Agony of the Internal Candidate. Nixon is very right indeed: inside hires are unfair to applicants and search committees alike. Her piece shows how the process can be quite complicated and unpleasant for both sides. Precariousness makes the situation even trickier, as it increases strong internal candidates.
On this side of the Mediterranean, this is a new situation too–but, ironically, the other way around. Being an internal hire has traditionally been almost the only way to secure a permanent position. Despite some recent (and modest) changes, it is still the typical way to go. So some internal candidates can actually be quite talented and competitive. Nowadays, though, globalization has pushed universities to, at least, dramatize a certain objectivity and rigor in hiring procedures. And so the contrast sometimes reaches surreal moments.
Gone are the days when departments “publicized” job announcements by posting them on a remote board typically on a Friday evening–and the deadline for applications was on Monday morning. But you can still feel the old Mediterranean flavor when a job profile changes unexpectedly after candidates have already been shortlisted; when an external candidate walks in the interview room and finds members of the selection committee yawning ostensibly; or in public job advertisements with profiles like this one.