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Internal job posting template

Internal Job Posting Template and Email Announcement, Free in Word and PDF

Two internal templates with the wording already written: the posting itself, and the email that announces it. Two filled samples under each, a copy button on every one, and free Word and PDF downloads. No sign-up, and no page of blank field labels.

Niels Geominy
Read the posting templateDownload all four files free

This is an internal job posting template you can use today, and the email announcement that goes with it. Both come with the wording already written, and the parts that change from one employer to the next sit in braces. Copy either straight off this page, or download them free in Word or PDF.

Most internal posting templates are a page of blank field labels. Job title, department, grade, closing date, and nothing to say in any of them. Layout was never the hard part. The hard part is telling a colleague whether they are eligible, what happens to the job they are doing now, whether their manager finds out, and what they get if they apply and do not get it. All four are written out here.

Anything in braces is yours to replace. Everything else is wording you can keep, change, or argue with. Nothing is gated, nothing needs an account, and there are two filled samples under each of the two templates.

On this page

What the internal job posting template contains

Ten blocks, in the order they are read. Two of them exist only because the posting is internal: the eligibility rule, which sits above the job rather than below it, and what happens to the people who apply and are not selected. Those are the first and last things an internal audience reads, and they are the two the blank forms leave empty.

  1. Internal vacancy line

    The one line that has to work in an email subject, on a noticeboard and in an intranet list.

  2. Who can apply

    The eligibility rule, stated before the job, because it is the first thing a colleague checks.

  3. About the role and where it sits

    What the job is, who it reports to, and why it is open, in the detail an insider can check.

  4. What you would do

    The week, in the order the hours actually fall, written for somebody who knows the business already.

  5. What you already need

    What has to be true on day one, kept apart from what you would teach after it.

  6. Grade, pay and terms

    The band, the number, and every term that changes when a person moves.

  7. Location, hours and start date

    Everything a colleague needs to work out whether the move fits the rest of their life.

  8. How to apply internally

    One route in, one deadline, and a plain answer about the line manager.

  9. What happens after you apply

    The steps, the dates, and what the people who are not selected actually get.

  10. Fair consideration line

    One honest sentence, and a real offer of adjustments.

Not every posting needs all ten. A short secondment inside one team and a permanent step up across three sites are different documents. Delete what does not apply and keep the order, because the order is what an internal reader scans.

The blank internal job posting template

Here it is in full. Copy the whole thing, or copy one block at a time. The tip beside each block is the thing that most often goes wrong in it.

internal-job-posting-template

10 blocks, model wording included

{like this} is yours to replace. Everything else is wording you can keep.

01Internal vacancy line

INTERNAL VACANCY: {Job Title}, {Team}, {Location}. {Grade or band}, {pay range}. Open to internal applicants until {closing date}.

Writing tip. Lead with the word internal and end with the closing date. Those two decide whether somebody reads the rest today or next week.

02Who can apply

This posting is open to {everyone at {Company}, or everyone in {division}, or everyone at {grade} and above}.

You can apply if you have been in your current role for {length of time} and you are not in a live {performance or disciplinary} process. {Say plainly whether part-time, fixed-term, agency and returning-from-leave colleagues are included}. Nothing else disqualifies you.

Writing tip. List the exceptions, or say there are none. An eligibility rule with a gap in it reads as a warning, and the people you most wanted to apply are the ones who read it that way.

03About the role and where it sits

You would join {team} as {Job Title}, reporting to {manager's name and role} and working alongside {who}. The team is {number} people and sits inside {department}.

This role is open because {the real reason: {name} moved to {role}, the team grew after {the change}, or the work exists now and nobody owns it}. It is {a new role, a replacement, fixed term for {length}, or a {length} secondment}.

Writing tip. Internal readers already know the team, so vague wording lands worse here than in an external ad. Name the manager, and say plainly whether this is a new role, a backfill or a secondment.

04What you would do

A normal week looks like this:

  • {Verb} {the task that fills most of the week}, working with {which team}.
  • {Verb} {the second biggest task}.
  • {Verb} {the part of the job that is new, or that nobody currently owns}.
  • {Verb} {the part that is genuinely different from the job you are doing now}.

{Roughly how much of this you would recognise from {the closest current role}}. The rest is new, and {who} would show you it in your first {period}.

Writing tip. That closing line is the one internal applicants read twice. Say which part of the job they have already done and which part they have not, because they will find out either way.

05What you already need

You need:

  • {The qualification, licence, clearance or system access the job cannot run without}.
  • {The experience inside {Company} that counts: the process you have run, the system you use daily, the sites or customers you know}.
  • {The habit that actually predicts success here, written as a behaviour rather than an adjective}.

We will train: {the things you do not need on day one, listed and labelled as exactly that, with who teaches them and roughly when}. If you have most of this and not all of it, apply anyway and say in your application what you would need.

Writing tip. Internal hiring exists to move people into work they have not done yet. If your essentials list only describes somebody already doing the job, you have written an external ad by accident.

06Grade, pay and terms

{Grade or band}, {pay range} {an hour or a year}. If you already sit inside that range, {the point you would move to and how it is decided}.

What changes: {hours, shift pattern, on-call, overtime eligibility, bonus scheme, allowances, notice period}. What stays: {continuous service, holiday entitlement, pension, length of service benefits}.

Writing tip. Publish the range. Colleagues can usually find out anyway, and a posting that hides the number reads as a posting that expects to underpay whoever takes it.

07Location, hours and start date

{Where the work happens}. {On site at {site}, hybrid with {number} days in, or remote within {region}}. {Whether that is different from where you work now}.

{Hours} a week, {shift pattern or core hours}. {Start date}, or as soon as a {handover length} handover is done. The handover is agreed between {your manager} and {the hiring manager}, not left to you to negotiate.

Writing tip. Name the handover length and say who agrees it. The most common way an internal move goes wrong is that nobody wrote down when the person actually leaves the old job.

08How to apply internally

{Apply at {internal link}, or send {what you send} to {name} at {email}} by {closing date, with the time and the time zone}. {What you need to send, and what you explicitly do not: no CV needed, or a short note instead of a covering letter}.

{Whether you tell your manager first, or whether we do, and at which stage. Write the actual rule rather than the word confidential}. Questions about the role before you apply go to {name}, and asking is not part of the assessment.

Writing tip. One route and one deadline. Two application routes on an internal posting produce two shortlists and one grievance.

09What happens after you apply

What happens next: {a {length} conversation with {name}}, then {a {length} interview or task with {who}}, then {a decision by {date}}.

Everyone who applies gets a decision and a reason from {name} within {timeframe} of the last interview. If you are not selected, {what you get: the feedback conversation, the development that was offered, who owns the follow-up}. Applying does not change anything about your current role.

If we do not fill this internally by {closing date}, we will advertise it externally. Internal applicants already in the process stay in it.

Writing tip. Those last two sentences are the whole trust question. When people believe applying is safe and that a no comes with a real conversation, you get applications from the colleagues who were not going to bother.

10Fair consideration line

{Company} considers every internal applicant on what they can do. We will make any adjustment you need at any stage, and we will not tell your team what you asked for. Tell {name} what would help when you apply, or at any point after.

Writing tip. Internal applicants skip the adjustments box more often than external ones, because they assume the people reading it already know them. Say who sees the request and who does not.

That is the whole posting. Everything below it is either the email that announces it, the same thing filled in, or the file version.

The internal job posting email announcement template

A posting on the intranet waits to be found, and most people never go looking. That is how an internal vacancy ends up with four applications from the same four colleagues who check every week. The announcement email is the half that does the reaching.

A posting on the intranet waits to be found. The announcement email is the half that does the reaching, so it is a different document with a different job: short enough to read standing up, complete enough that somebody who never opens the posting still knows whether it is for them.

Eight blocks, from the subject line down to the sign-off. The header is part of the template: who an internal announcement comes from, and who it goes to, change how it is read before a word of the body is.

internal-job-posting-email-template

8 blocks, header included

From
{Name}, {role}
To
{Everyone at {Company}, or the {team} distribution list}
Subject
Internal vacancy: {Job Title}, {Team}. Applications close {closing date}

Writing tip. Put the word internal, the job and the closing date in the subject. A subject line that says exciting opportunity gets opened by nobody who is busy.

{like this} is yours to replace. Everything else is wording you can keep.

02Opening line

We are recruiting a {Job Title} in {team}, and we are opening it to {everyone at {Company}, or everyone in {division}} first.

Writing tip. Say internally first in the first sentence when it is true. It is the single reason an internal announcement gets read rather than skimmed.

03The role in three lines

{Job Title}, reporting to {name}, {grade or band}, {pay range}, based at {location}, {hours or shift pattern}.

  • What the job is: {one sentence}.
  • Why it is open: {a new role, a replacement, or a {length} secondment}.
  • What you would need on day one: {the one thing}. What we would teach you: {the rest}.

Writing tip. Three lines, then the link. An email that reproduces the whole posting only gets read by the people who were already going to apply.

04Who can apply

You can apply if you have been in your current role for {length of time} and you are not in a live {performance or disciplinary} process. {Which of part-time, fixed-term, agency and on-leave colleagues are included}.

Writing tip. Repeat the eligibility rule in the email. Half your audience decides right here whether the rest of the message is about them.

05The line that reaches the people who assumed it was not for them

If you are reading this and thinking you are not quite ready, apply anyway. {Name} would rather talk to you about the gap than fill this without you in the running.

Writing tip. Write this one and mean it. The whole point of announcing a job internally is to reach the colleagues who would never have applied to the external ad.

06How to apply, and by when

{Apply at {internal link}, or send {what you send} to {name} at {email}} by {closing date, time and time zone}. {Whether you tell your manager first, or whether we do, and at which stage}.

Questions before you apply go to {name} at {email}. Asking is not part of the assessment.

Writing tip. One link, one date, one name. Every extra route you offer is another list somebody has to reconcile at shortlisting.

07What happens next

Shortlisting on {date}, {interviews} in {week}, decision by {date}. Everyone who applies gets a decision and a reason.

If we do not fill this internally by {closing date}, we will advertise it externally. Anyone already in the process stays in it.

Writing tip. Saying that the job goes outside after the closing date is what makes the deadline real. Leave it out and an internal posting gets treated as optional.

08Sign-off

Full details and the application link are in the posting: {internal link}.

{Name}

{Role}, {Company}

Writing tip. Send it from a person, not from a no-reply address. An internal announcement nobody can reply to is an announcement nobody replies to.

Send it once, and send it from a person. If the role stays open for more than a week, a two-line reminder the day before the closing date is worth more than a longer first email.

Download the internal job posting template free in Word or PDF

Four files, no email address, no account. Both Word versions are normal .docx files with the blocks laid out and the model wording already in place, so you edit over the top of them instead of filling in empty labels. The PDFs are the same documents with a fixed layout, for printing, pinning up in a break room, or sending to whoever signs the posting off.

Internal job posting template

Word (.docx)40 KBFree

Editable, with both filled samples under the blank template. Opens in Word, and in Google Docs, Pages and LibreOffice without reformatting.

Internal job posting template

PDF258 KBFree

Fixed layout, for printing, pinning up on a site noticeboard, or sending on for sign-off.

Internal job posting email template

Word (.docx)39 KBFree

The announcement email, header included, editable, with both filled samples under it.

Internal job posting email template

PDF205 KBFree

One page. For circulating the wording before anyone presses send.

Free to use in your own hiring, including commercially. You do not need to credit us, and you do not need to tell us. If you want the ads for the version that goes out externally afterwards, that part is our actual business.

Two filled internal job posting samples

Two roles, written out in full. One is a step up from the floor. The other is a sideways move into a different function, where the training is the offer rather than a footnote. Between them they cover the two reasons internal hiring exists at all.

Take the closer one, change what is not true, and delete anything you would not say to the person's face. That is a publishable internal posting in about ten minutes.

Shift Supervisor

Best for: The step up from the floor, where half your best applicants already work the shift.

INTERNAL VACANCY: Shift Supervisor, {Site}, {Location}. {Grade}, {pay range}. Open to internal applicants until {closing date}.

Open to everyone at {Site} who has been in their current role for {six months} and is not in a live performance or disciplinary process. Part-time and fixed-term colleagues are included. If you have been back from {parental or long-term leave} for less than that, you are eligible too.

You would run a shift of {number} people, reporting to {name}, {shift manager}. This role is open because {name} moved to {role} in {month}, so it is a straight replacement on the existing rota rather than a new layer above anyone.

A normal shift: brief the team and set the plan for the hours, move people between {areas} as the work moves, sign off {the checks and the paperwork}, take the first line of anything that goes wrong, and hand over to the next supervisor with the picture written down. {Most} of that is work you have watched happen every day. The part that is new is the people half: rota changes, return to work conversations, and being the person who says no.

You need {number} months on {the operation}, a clean record on {the safety checks}, and the willingness to give an instruction to somebody who was on your shift last week. We will train the rest: the supervisor system access, the {absence and return to work} process, and {the licence} if you do not already hold it. Nobody arrives in this job knowing all of it.

{Grade}, {pay range}, plus {shift premium} on nights. If you already sit inside that range you move to {the point that reflects the supervisor duties}, not to the bottom of it. Continuous service, holiday and pension carry over unchanged. What changes: you move to {the supervisor rota}, you become eligible for {the bonus scheme}, and your notice period goes to {length}.

{Site}, {shift pattern}, {hours} a week, rota out {four weeks} ahead. Start date {date}, or as soon as a {two week} handover is done. {Name} and {name} agree that handover between them, not you.

To apply, send a short note to {name} at {email} by {closing date, time and time zone}. No CV. Tell us about one shift that went wrong and what you would have done differently as the supervisor. We tell your manager once you reach the interview stage, and we tell you on the day we tell them.

What happens next: a {thirty minute} conversation with {name} in week {number}, then a {one hour} interview with {name} and {name}, then a decision by {date}. Everyone who applies gets a decision and a reason from {name} within {five working days} of the last interview, and if you are not selected {name} books the conversation about what to do next. Applying does not change anything about your current role. If we have not filled this internally by {closing date}, it goes out externally, and anyone already in the process stays in it.

Hiring from outside as well? The parent template is the same job written for an audience that has never heard of you, with nine blocks, six filled versions and its own Word and PDF downloads.

Open the job ad template

Two filled internal job posting email samples

The same two roles again, as the email that announces them. The first goes to one site, from the manager who runs it. The second goes to everyone, for a role that is open to any function. Read each one next to its posting above: the email is not a shorter posting, it is a different document doing a different job.

Both are short enough to read standing up and complete enough that somebody who never opens the posting still knows whether it is for them. That is the whole test.

Shift Supervisor, sent to one site

Best for: A department-level announcement, from the manager who runs the team the job sits in.

From
{Name}, {Site Manager}
To
{Site}, all shifts
Subject
Internal vacancy: Shift Supervisor, {Site}. Applications close {closing date}

We are recruiting a shift supervisor at {Site}, and it is open to people here before it goes anywhere else.

Shift Supervisor, reporting to me, {grade}, {pay range} plus {shift premium} on nights, based at {Site}, on {the supervisor rota}. You would run a shift of {number} people. It is open because {name} moved to {role} in {month}, so it is a straight replacement rather than a new layer above anyone.

You can apply if you have been in your current role for {six months} and you are not in a live performance or disciplinary process. Part-time and fixed-term colleagues are included, and so are you if you have been back from leave for less than that.

What you need on day one: {number} months on the operation and a clean record on the safety checks. What we train: the supervisor system access, the {absence and return to work} process, and {the licence} if you do not already hold it.

If you are reading this and thinking you are not quite ready, apply anyway. I would rather have the conversation with you about the gap than fill this without you in the running.

Send me a short note by {closing date, time and time zone}. No CV. Tell me about one shift that went wrong and what you would have done differently as the supervisor. Your manager hears once you reach the interview, and you hear on the same day.

Conversations in week {number}, interviews on {date}, decision by {date}. Everyone who applies gets an answer and a reason from me within {five working days} of the last interview. If we have not filled it internally by {closing date}, it goes out externally, and anyone already in the process stays in it.

Full details and the application link are in the posting: {internal link}.

{Name}

{Site Manager}, {Company}

How to run an internal job posting people trust

The template stops the posting being badly structured. It cannot stop it being the kind of posting nobody applies to. Six rules do most of that work, and every one of them answers a question a colleague would not ask out loud.

  1. Put who can apply above what the job is.

    An employee reads an internal posting in two steps: is this for me, then do I want it. Answer the first question in the first two lines and you keep the people who would otherwise stop at the job title and assume it was written for somebody else.

  2. Say why the role is open.

    A replacement, a new role, a secondment, a team that grew after something changed. Internal readers can usually work it out, and they will assume the least flattering version if you leave it blank. One sentence closes it.

  3. Say what happens to the job they are doing now.

    Who covers it, how long the handover is, and which two managers agree that between them. The most common way an internal move goes wrong is that the person is quietly doing both jobs months later, because nobody wrote this part down.

  4. Answer the manager question in the posting, not in a corridor.

    Whether people tell their line manager before applying, or whether you do, and at which stage. Write the actual rule. The word confidential on its own tells nobody anything, and everybody assumes it means the opposite.

  5. Publish the grade and the range, exactly as you would externally.

    Colleagues can usually find out anyway, and a posting that hides the number reads as a posting that expects to underpay whoever takes it. Then add the line almost nobody writes: what happens to an applicant who already sits inside that range.

  6. Promise feedback to everyone who applies, then give it.

    An internal applicant who hears nothing is a colleague who still works here on Monday. Feedback is most of the difference between somebody who applies again next time and somebody who applies somewhere else.

Four lines that show up in almost every internal posting, and what to write instead. In each case the replacement is not cleverer, it is just checkable.

The usual version

This role is open to all employees.

What to write instead

You can apply if you have been in your current role for {six months} and you are not in a live performance or disciplinary process. Part-time and fixed-term colleagues are included. Nothing else disqualifies you.

All employees is not an eligibility rule, it is the absence of one, so every reader supplies their own worst guess about whether it includes them. Writing the rule out is the cheapest way there is to get applications from people who assumed they did not qualify.

The usual version

Please discuss with your line manager before applying.

What to write instead

Apply first. We tell your manager once you reach {the first interview}, not before, and we tell you on the day we tell them.

Asking people to clear it with their manager first hands one person a veto over the whole process, and quietly removes every applicant whose manager would rather keep them where they are.

The usual version

Salary: competitive, dependent on experience.

What to write instead

{Grade}, {pay range}. If you already sit inside that range you move to {the point that reflects the new duties}, not to the bottom of it.

Competitive means nothing anywhere, and rather less than nothing internally, where people compare notes. The second sentence is the one that stops a good applicant assuming a sideways move will cost them money.

The usual version

Unsuccessful applicants will be notified in due course.

What to write instead

Everyone who applies gets a decision and a reason from {name} within {five working days} of the last interview, whether or not you got it.

In due course is what a process says when nobody owns the last step of it. Naming the person and the timeframe is what makes the promise checkable, and internal applicants are the one audience that will check.

Questions about internal job postings

Is the internal job posting template free?

Yes, and there is no email wall in front of it. The posting, the announcement email, both Word files, both PDFs and the copy-paste versions on this page are free to download and free to use in your own hiring, including commercially. You do not need an account with us to take any of them.

Is there an internal job posting email template?

Yes, and it is the second half of this page. It is a complete announcement email, subject line down to sign-off, with the model wording written and the From, To and Subject rows treated as part of the template. Two filled samples sit under it: one sent to a single site by the manager who runs it, one sent to everyone for a role open to any function. It downloads in Word and PDF alongside the posting.

What should an internal job posting include that an external one does not?

Four things. Who is eligible, stated before the job itself. Why the role is open. What happens to the job the applicant is doing now, including how long the handover is and who agrees it. And what an unsuccessful internal applicant gets, from whom, and by when. The template carries all four as their own blocks, because they are the questions that decide whether people apply at all.

How long should an internal job posting stay open?

There is no standard, and we have no data saying one window beats another. What decides it is practical: how many shifts have to pass before everyone on the rota has actually seen it, whether the people you most want to reach are on leave, and whether you can hold the shortlisting date you published. Pick a closing date you will not move, put it in the posting and in the email subject line, and say what happens after it.

Do you have to post a job internally before advertising it externally?

Check your own policy first, and any collective agreement or employee representation arrangement covering the role, because plenty of employers have committed to an internal-first window and then forgotten it exists. Where there is no rule, internal-first only works if the closing date is real. The template has a line for exactly that: if the role is not filled internally by the closing date it goes out externally, and internal applicants already in the process stay in it.

Is an internal job posting the same as an internal job advertisement?

In practice, yes. Internal job posting is the HR system word, internal job advertisement is the formal one, and internal vacancy notice is what it usually gets called in the email that announces it. Some employers reserve advertisement for the version that goes out externally afterwards. The same ten blocks work for all of them, because the reader is the same colleague with the same four questions.

Should an internal job posting show the salary?

Yes, and the grade or band with it. Colleagues can usually find out anyway, and a growing number of places now require a pay range in the posting itself, so check the rule where the job sits. The line most internal postings miss is the one about applicants who already sit inside the range: say which point they would move to and how that is decided, or people will assume a sideways move costs them money and will not apply.

What is the 70/30 rule in hiring?

In most hiring content it means the candidate should do about 70 percent of the talking in an interview and the interviewer 30 percent. Some teams reuse the label for budget splits between proven and experimental sourcing channels. Both are rules of thumb rather than standards, and neither is a rule about internal postings, so do not let it decide how long yours stays open or how many colleagues you interview.