An excessive bias to internal hires, though, runs the risk of organizational ossification.
I've spent most of my career in consulting organizations, and sometimes our clients have been orgs with a high percentage of "lifer" employees for whatever reason. (Often, this is because the employer is one of only a few good, white-collar employers in an area, which is its own cost.)
Orgs with insufficient new blood get stuck. They think of the Company Way as the only way, and policy begins to replace thought pretty much across the board.
One example, early in my career -- before I went to consulting, even -- was a place I worked for 2 years in the mid-90s. They were a 100% VAX shop much later than the rest of the industry, and were known to pretty much hire new technical people only right of of college. As a result, they ended up technically isolated from the mainstream.
Once they realized that they were spending WAY more on homegrown solutions than they would on a commercial DB, it was really too late -- new grads didn't want to work on a dying platform, and the veterans had no experience working on anything other than the homegrown stuff.
I've spent most of my career in consulting organizations, and sometimes our clients have been orgs with a high percentage of "lifer" employees for whatever reason. (Often, this is because the employer is one of only a few good, white-collar employers in an area, which is its own cost.)
Orgs with insufficient new blood get stuck. They think of the Company Way as the only way, and policy begins to replace thought pretty much across the board.
One example, early in my career -- before I went to consulting, even -- was a place I worked for 2 years in the mid-90s. They were a 100% VAX shop much later than the rest of the industry, and were known to pretty much hire new technical people only right of of college. As a result, they ended up technically isolated from the mainstream.
Once they realized that they were spending WAY more on homegrown solutions than they would on a commercial DB, it was really too late -- new grads didn't want to work on a dying platform, and the veterans had no experience working on anything other than the homegrown stuff.