Recruiting and Retention

Recruitment refers to the process of finding possible candidates for a job or function, undertaken by recruiters. It may be undertaken by an employment agency or a member of staff at the business or organisation looking for recruits. Either way it may involve advertising, commonly in the recruitment section of a newspaper or in a newspaper dedicated to job adverts. Employment agencies will often advertise jobs in their windows. Posts can also be advertised at a job centre if they are targeting the unemployed.

Suitability for a job is typically assessed by looking for skills, e.g. communication skills, typing skills, computer skills. Evidence for skills required for a job may be provided in the form of qualifications (educational or professional), experience in a job requiring the relevant skills or the testimony of references. Employment agencies may also give computerised tests to assess an individuals' off hand knowledge of software packages or their typing skills. At a more basic level written tests may be given to assess numeracy and literacy. A candidate may also be assessed on the basis of an interview. Sometimes candidates will be requested to provide a résumé or to complete an application form to provide this evidence.

A British Army etc. recruitment centre in Oxford.

The follow-up process may be referred to as part of the recruitment process: inveigling the selected candidate or candidates to take up the target job or function. This applies particularly in filling positions in the military or in expanding the human resource base of a cult.

The dubious reputation sometimes attaching to recruitment has echoes in the colloquial synonyms of the term such as "shoulder-tapping" and "head-hunting", and in related terminology such as the old boy network.

See also

• impressment, shanghaiing
• military recruitment, counter recruitment
• proselytisation, counter-recruitment
• pyramid scheme
• US Army School Recruitment Manual -- Media: http://www.usarec.army.mil/im/formpub/REC_PUBS/p350_13.pdf

Retention can have the following meanings:

1. Instance of retaining (e.g. water in the ground; see retention pond or retention basin)
2. In learning: the ability to retain facts and figures in memory (see: memory retention, spaced repetition)