"When the talent pool is complete, everyone in the talent pool will be placed in order of their performance at interview.
Should then, vacancies for Trainee Drivers arise, candidates will be contacted in the talent pool in that order."
Taken from recent correspondence.
I'm sure internals can seek more information and better insight, however if they only wanted internals why waste money on an external recruitment campaign?
As they evolve companies like GWR need new blood. Experience and skill sets from other industries. New ideas. Other professionals can also prove reliability and fitness for the role from their current jobs.
I'm sure their are internal privileges; however if it was that much of a key factor I think we'd see an internal application process only, a bit like how cross country have recently advertised. Plus GWR have a qualified drivers uplift running alongside the trainee driver intakes (for some depots).
People have been an extended time now, waiting to be called, return to training or even apply for vacancies. This causes a lot of speculation and over thinking (including myself) which is why we are seeing these discussions. I don't think we'll ever understand the exact process though!
Hopefully people's turn will come, the good news is its looks like there is definitely movement and training is slowly starting up again