Internal job posting template for internal mobility

An internal job posting template is the format a company uses to list an open role to current employees before, or alongside, an external search — the posting text itself, the eligibility rules for who can apply, and the notification a candidate's current manager receives once they advance. Getting this right keeps strong employees from job-hunting externally out of frustration that internal moves feel invisible or political.

This is the posting and process document, not the message asking people to refer others (see employee referral program template for that) and not the internal requisition approval itself (see hiring plan template and job requisition form template for opening the role in the first place).

What an internal mobility process has to settle

• Eligibility. Minimum time in current role, performance standing, whether the employee needs to disclose the application to their manager before or after applying.
• Timing. How long the role stays internal-only before external candidates are considered, stated in the posting.
• Notification. When the current manager is told — usually once the candidate advances past an initial screen, not the moment they apply.
• Evaluation. Whether internal candidates go through the full external process or a shortened version, and who decides.
• Confidentiality. How applications are handled if the employee does not want their manager to know yet.

Write these down before the first posting goes up, not after the first awkward case. Most of the friction in internal mobility comes from teams improvising the eligibility and notification rules role by role, so two employees who apply for similar moves in the same quarter get treated differently depending on who handled their case. A one-page policy that every recruiter and manager can point to removes most of that variance, and it gives HR a clear answer when a manager asks why they were not consulted before an employee applied.

The internal job posting template

[Role title] — [Department/Team], [Location or Remote]

About the role
[2–3 sentences: what this role owns and why it's open]

What you'd be doing
- [Responsibility]
- [Responsibility]
- [Responsibility]

What we're looking for
- [Requirement or experience]
- [Requirement or experience]
- [Skill that would help but isn't required]

Eligibility to apply
- Currently in your role at least [X months]
- [Performance standing requirement, if any]
- You do not need your manager's approval to apply. Your manager will be
  notified if you advance to [stage — e.g. "a first conversation"].

How to apply
[Link or process], open through [date]. After that date, if the role
hasn't been filled internally, we'll open it externally.

Questions
Reach out to [recruiter name] confidentially at any point in the process.

A filled example

An invented posting, written the way a usable one reads:

Manager notification: what to say and when

Notify the current manager after the candidate clears the first substantive step, not the moment they click apply. Notifying too early discourages people from exploring a move at all, since many employees will not apply to something their manager hears about instantly, even in a company that says it welcomes internal mobility. A short, neutral note works better than a long explanation:

Subject: [Employee name] is exploring an internal move

Hi [Manager],

[Employee name] has applied for [role] on the [team] and has moved past
the initial screen. I wanted you to hear it from me rather than secondhand.
This isn't a reflection on their standing with your team — it's a normal
part of how we handle internal mobility here.

Happy to talk through timing or transition planning once we're further
along. For now, no action needed from you.

[Recruiter name]

The line "no action needed from you" matters. A manager who reads this as a request to weigh in on the decision will sometimes do exactly that, and a hiring manager fielding informal pressure from a candidate's current manager undermines the fairness the process is supposed to guarantee.

Keeping the process fair

Whether internal mobility is actually working

Track two numbers per quarter: the share of open roles filled internally, and the share of internal applicants who got a first conversation versus a form-letter decline. Worked example with invented figures — say a company posts 40 roles internally in a quarter, fills 9 of them with internal candidates, and had 60 internal applications total, of which 22 got a first conversation. That is a 22.5% internal fill rate (9 ÷ 40) and a 37% conversion from application to conversation (22 ÷ 60). Neither number means much on its own in a single quarter, but tracked over a year they show whether internal mobility is a real path or mostly a posting requirement nobody uses. A fill rate that stays near zero despite a steady stream of applications usually means the bar or the process, not the talent pool, is the problem.

Posting mechanics: where and how long

Post to wherever employees actually check — an internal careers page linked from the intranet, a dedicated Slack or Teams channel, and a line in a regular all-hands or newsletter for higher- visibility roles. A posting that only lives on a careers page nobody visits is internal in name only. State the internal-only window plainly (five to ten business days is a common range) and hold to it: opening a role externally early, even by a day, signals to employees that the internal window is not a real one, and that signal spreads faster than any policy document explaining otherwise.

Confidential applications

Some employees want to explore a move before anyone, including their manager, knows they are looking. Build a confidential path into the process rather than treating every request for discretion as an exception: let the employee apply directly to the recruiter rather than through a system their manager can see, and hold the manager notification until the candidate explicitly agrees to move forward past an initial conversation. If a company genuinely wants employees to treat internal mobility as normal rather than risky, the option to explore privately, at least in the earliest stage, is what actually makes that true — a policy that says "feel free to apply" but immediately surfaces every application to the current manager will get very few of them.

This does not mean the process stays confidential forever. Once a candidate is a real contender — typically past a first conversation with the hiring manager — plan the notification and the transition openly, both to respect the current manager's need to plan and because a surprise resignation-equivalent handled badly can sour the very team culture that made internal mobility worth building in the first place.

What happens after someone is chosen

Agree a transition timeline with both managers before an offer is finalized, not after: how much notice the current team gets, whether the employee finishes any active project, and a realistic start date on the new team. Two to four weeks is typical for an individual contributor role and longer for one with direct reports or client relationships. Put the transition plan in writing, the same way you would document any handoff, so both managers are working from the same timeline rather than two different assumptions about when the move actually happens.