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How does a business find and choose the right people to employ?

Recruitment and selection: internal and external recruitment, the recruitment process and documents, methods of selection, and the costs and benefits of different recruitment methods.

A focused answer to the Eduqas GCSE Business C510 content on recruitment and selection, covering internal and external recruitment, the recruitment process and documents, methods of selection, and the costs and benefits of each approach.

Generated by Claude Opus 4.811 min answerUpdated 2026-06-02

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Recruitment is the process of finding and attracting candidates for a job; selection is choosing the best one. A business can recruit internally (from its existing staff, by promotion or transfer) or externally (from outside). Internal recruitment is cheaper and faster, the candidate already knows the business, and promotion motivates staff, but it brings no new ideas and leaves another vacancy. External recruitment brings fresh skills and a wider pool, but it is more expensive, slower and riskier because the candidate is unknown. The recruitment process usually starts with a job analysis, then a job description (the role and its duties) and a person specification (the skills and qualities needed), which are used to advertise the post. Candidates apply with an application form or CV and covering letter. Selection methods include shortlisting, interviews, tests (skills, aptitude or psychometric), assessment centres and references. The right recruitment method and the care taken in selection matter because hiring the wrong person is costly, in wasted training, lost output and the cost of recruiting again.

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What this topic is asking
Recruitment and selection
Internal and external recruitment
The recruitment process and documents
Methods of selection
The costs and benefits of recruitment methods
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What this topic is asking

Eduqas C510 wants you to know how a business recruits and selects staff: the difference between internal and external recruitment, the recruitment process and documents, the methods of selection, and the costs and benefits of different approaches. The exam often asks whether a business should recruit internally or externally for a particular role, so you must weigh the trade-offs.

Recruitment and selection

Getting both right matters because hiring the wrong person is expensive: wasted training, lower output, and the cost of starting the whole process again.

Internal and external recruitment

The recruitment process and documents

The job description and person specification are the foundation: they define what the business is looking for, so the right people apply and can be judged fairly.

Methods of selection

Different methods suit different roles: a simple job may need only an interview, while a senior role may use tests and an assessment centre.

The costs and benefits of recruitment methods

The choice depends on the role, the budget, and whether the business has a suitable internal candidate or needs skills it lacks.

Weighing the cost of a bad hire against thorough selection

Set out the figures

A business can use a quick, cheap selection process costing $500$ , or a thorough one (tests and an assessment centre) costing $2{,}000$ . A bad hire costs the business about $8{,}000$ in wasted training, lost output and re-recruitment. The thorough process cuts the chance of a bad hire from $30\%$ to $10\%$ .

Expected cost of a bad hire under each process

\text{Cheap process: } 0.30 \times 8{,}000 = 2{,}400. \qquad \text{Thorough process: } 0.10 \times 8{,}000 = 800.

Total expected cost of each process (selection cost plus expected bad-hire cost)

\text{Cheap: } 500 + 2{,}400 = 2{,}900. \qquad \text{Thorough: } 2{,}000 + 800 = 2{,}800.

Interpret the result

Although the thorough process costs $1{,}500$ more to run, it cuts the expected cost of a bad hire from $2{,}400$ to $800$ , so the total expected cost is actually slightly lower ( $2{,}800$ versus $2{,}900$ ). In other words, spending more on careful selection pays for itself by reducing the far larger cost of hiring the wrong person. The example shows why thorough recruitment is not just an expense but an investment: the cost of getting it wrong, in wasted training, lost output and recruiting again, dwarfs the cost of selecting well, which is the judgement an evaluation should reach.

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Q1. State two documents used in the recruitment process. [2 marks]

Cue. Job description, person specification, application form, CV.

Q2. Explain one benefit to a business of recruiting internally. [3 marks]

Cue. Cheaper and faster, the candidate knows the business, and promotion motivates existing staff.

Exam-style practice questions

Practice questions written in the style of WJEC Eduqas exam questions on this dot point, with worked answer explainers. The year tag is the paper they imitate, not the source.

Eduqas 20182 marksExplain the difference between internal and external recruitment. (Component 1)

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A 2-mark AO1 question. Internal recruitment is filling a job vacancy with someone already employed by the business (a promotion or a move). External recruitment is filling it with someone from outside the business. One mark for defining internal as recruiting from within, the second for defining external as recruiting from outside. A common error is to describe the methods (advertising, interviews) rather than the source of the candidate; the distinction is simply whether the new person already works for the business or not.

Eduqas 20216 marksA growing business needs to fill a senior management role. Evaluate whether it should recruit internally or externally. (Component 1)

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A 6-mark Evaluate question needing both sides and a judgement applied to the business. Internal recruitment: it is cheaper and faster (no advertising or long selection), the candidate already knows the business and its culture, and promotion motivates staff by showing there is a career path; but it brings in no new ideas, leaves another vacancy to fill, and limits the pool to existing staff. External recruitment: it brings fresh skills, experience and ideas from outside and a wider pool of candidates, which a senior role may need; but it is more expensive and slower, the new person is an unknown quantity and takes time to settle, and overlooking internal staff can demotivate them. Judgement: for a senior management role the business should weigh whether it has a capable internal candidate (favouring internal, cheaper and motivating) or needs new expertise it lacks (favouring external); a sensible approach is often to advertise both internally and externally. Markers reward two-sided analysis of both methods against the senior role and a supported conclusion.

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Sources & how we know this

WJEC Eduqas GCSE Business specification (C510) — WJEC Eduqas (2017)