Q.Define recruitment. How is it different from selection?

Recruitment and selection are two separate, sequential steps in the staffing process, and this distinction is one of the most commonly tested ideas in this chapter.

Recruitment is the process of searching for prospective employees and stimulating them to apply for jobs in an organisation. It is a positive process, aimed at generating the widest possible pool of suitable applications for a vacancy.

Selection, by contrast, is a negative, screening process — it involves progressively rejecting unsuitable candidates from among those who applied through recruitment, so that only the best-fit candidate(s) remain to be offered the job.

The key differences: recruitment comes first in the staffing sequence and its output is a pool of applications; selection comes second and its output is one or a few hired employees. Recruitment tries to maximise the number of suitable applicants; selection tries to narrow that number down to the best fit. Without effective recruitment first, selection has very little genuine choice to work with, no matter how rigorous the selection process itself is.

Using "recruitment" and "selection" interchangeably, as if hiring is a single step — the syllabus treats them as two distinct chapters/processes precisely because they serve opposite purposes (widening the pool vs. narrowing it down).