Recruitment, selection and training — Edexcel A-Level Business
Test yourself on Recruitment, selection and training with PEARSON EDEXCEL A-Level practice questions.
7 days Premium · Then free forever · No card, no charge
Recruitment, selection and training explained
Finding the right person begins with a job description and a person specification, because the advert, the shortlist, the interview and any testing are only as good as the criteria written first.
Read the full explanation
Filling a post from inside is faster and lower risk since the performance record already exists, and the promotion itself motivates, which is the advancement Herzberg treats as a genuine motivator. It also leaves a second vacancy behind and can keep the same thinking in the room. Hiring from outside buys skills the firm does not have and fresh ideas, but agency fees often run at a sixth to a fifth of first year salary, induction takes longer and the failure rate is higher. Decide from the gap in the workforce plan rather than from habit.
b) Costs of recruitment, selection and training
Hiring and developing people eats cash long before it earns any, and the marks go to answers that trace that cash. Advertising, agency fees, the management hours spent shortlisting and interviewing, testing and relocation all land before day one, and then come trainer fees, materials, certification and the output lost while someone sits in a classroom or shadows a colleague. Add the learning curve, because a new starter works slowly for weeks. Tie the total to labour turnover, found by dividing the number of leavers in a year by the average number employed and multiplying by one hundred: a firm losing a quarter of its staff each year pays these bills four times as often as one losing a sixteenth. That is what turns retention spending from a cost into an investment.
c) Types of training: induction; on-the-job; off-the-job
Three tools for three different jobs. The first week version tells a new starter where things are, what the safety rules say and how the place behaves, and done well it cuts the early leaving that wastes the hiring spend. Learning at the workstation is cheap, immediately relevant and keeps output flowing, but it slows whoever is doing the teaching and quietly copies their bad habits across the floor. Sending people to a college, a supplier or a specialist trainer buys expertise nobody inside has and can end in a recognised qualification, yet it costs fees plus the wages of someone producing nothing that day. Match the tool to the skill: routine tasks stay on the line, while safety critical or technical skills are worth paying to teach properly.
Your focus
- a) Recruitment and selection process: internal versus external recruitment
- b) Costs of recruitment, selection and training
- c) Types of training: induction; on-the-job; off-the-job
Recruitment, selection and training exam tips
Marking Points
- Names the stages that matter to the argument, the person specification, the shortlist and the selection method, and says why the criteria drive the quality of the hire.
- Compares cost, speed and risk on each route and applies the comparison to the firm in the case, not to businesses in general.
- Uses a motivation link, for example that promoting from within signals a career path and supports retention, while an outside appointment can demotivate a passed over candidate.
- Judges on the skills gap: where the capability already exists inside, promotion wins, and where the firm is entering a new market or new technology, it usually does not.
- Separates direct cash costs, adverts, agency fees and trainer fees, from opportunity costs such as management time and the output lost while staff are away from the job.
- Sizes the bill with case data, for example a cost for each hire multiplied by the number of vacancies, or training days multiplied by a daily wage, with the answer in pounds.
- States the labour turnover formula, leavers in the period divided by the average number employed and multiplied by one hundred, and reads a high percentage as a repeating cost.
- Judges whether the spending is an investment by pointing at the return, lower turnover, higher productivity, fewer defects or better customer service.
- Gives the purpose of each type rather than only the label, settling in and safety awareness, learning by doing at the workplace, and specialist instruction away from it.
- Applies to the business in the case, matching a routine repetitive task to workplace learning and a technical or accredited skill to an outside provider.
- Costs the choice, including fees, the trainer's lost output and the wages paid while the employee is away from production.
- Evaluates with a named theory, for example Herzberg on growth and recognition, and links the improved skill to productivity, quality or lower turnover in that firm.
Examiner Tips
- 💡Be ready to compare an agency fee or advertising spend given in the extract with the cost of training an existing employee to do the job.
- 💡If the case says the business is entering a new market or adopting unfamiliar technology, that is the examiner signalling that the skill is not available inside.
- 💡Recommendation questions want one route chosen and defended with case evidence, not a balanced list that never decides.
- 💡Calculation items here usually ask for a total cost or a cost for each employee, so set the working out line by line with units in pounds and the marker can award method marks even after a slip.
- 💡In evaluation, contrast the one off cost of hiring with the recurring cost of high turnover, then say which of the two the business in the case actually faces.
- 💡Watch the time period in the question, since a monthly wage multiplied by a yearly headcount is the most common arithmetic error on this topic.
- 💡Read the extract for the kind of work involved, since a production line, a professional service and a safety regulated site each point to a different type of training.
- 💡If the question is about productivity or quality, link the training to output for each worker per hour and to the defect or complaint rate given in the case.
- 💡Where the firm is short of cash, say so in the judgement, because the cheapest option becomes the right one for a business with a liquidity problem.
Common Mistakes
- Calling internal recruitment free, when the vacated post still has to be filled and the step up needs training time and money.
- Retelling the whole recruitment process as a story instead of using the stages to answer the question actually asked.
- Assuming outside candidates are automatically better, ignoring the higher failure rate and the weeks before a new starter reaches full output.
- Counting only the advert and forgetting that wages are still paid while an employee is training and producing nothing.
- Assuming training always pays back, when newly qualified staff become attractive to rivals and can be poached before the firm recovers its outlay.
- Quoting a national average cost for each hire instead of the figures printed in the extract, which loses the application credit.
- Saying workplace training is free, when the experienced worker doing the teaching stops producing while they teach.
- Treating induction as a tour of the building rather than the stage that reduces early leavers, accidents and supervision time.
- Describing all three types and never choosing one for the firm, so the answer stalls at knowledge and never reaches evaluation.