There are 2 strategic vectors of human resource management: an open or closed model. The reasons for the development or rooting of a closed model (the internal labor market) we explain by two groups of basic conditions (factors): the specifics of the external environment and the business model of the organization. Each of the conditions determines the need to attract workers with specific characteristics.The article is devoted to the study of the influence of these factors on the creation of internal labor markets in universities. The methodological framework of the study is based on human resource management and labor economics. The specificity of the business model of the university is due to the multifunctionality of its target efficiency, the complexity of the hierarchy, and the special characteristics of the goods. Also, the reasons for the emergence of closed models of human resource management are associated with bilateral and quasi-market relations in the higher education. Together, these factors explain the emergence of a special type of internal labor market. Its key characteristics are an indirect system for assessing the level of professor’s qualifications; self-selection and inbreeding as the unique institutions; implicit individual contracts as a by-product of the hidden career and the working time elasticity. In Russian universities, internal labor markets are a non-alternative model of human resource management due to the underdevelopment of infrastructure, as well as an imbalance in supply and demand in the external labor market. It is shown that the functioning of such a model will be relatively expedient when building the effective work of a university in a loose coupling net of national and international academic community.