OWD and Sharing Rule scenario with Role Hirerachy

Question

I was doing some workbook and came across below scenario.

I have created a Custom Object called Position. I have set the OWD as Private for custom object Position and setup a Role Hierarchy where Role Recruiter have some users. Then I did a Sharing rule from Role Recruiter to the same Role Recruiter with Access Level as `Read Only.

I understood it as, this is done for the whole members in Role Recruiter will have Read Access to all records in Object Positions even though the object is set as Private in OWD.

My query is that - If we set the OWD as 'Public Read Only' instead of 'Private' for object Position then the Sharing rule is not required in the above case.

1. Whether my assumption is correct?
2. Is there any additional benefit or disadvantage in changing the OWD or staying as previous OWD?

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

For first point yes your assumption is correct.

For second point is if in future you want to restrict this for some user and allow for some users then you need to again change the OWD to private but using sharing rule you just need to update their role do its easy to maintain.

Also sharing rule will only user with Role Recruiter to see the records but the OWD will allow this for every profile which you might don't want to do.