Recruitment: internal vs external
Internal recruitment fills a vacancy from existing staff, e.g. promoting a supervisor: cheaper, faster, the candidate is known and staff are motivated — but it creates a further vacancy lower down and adds no fresh ideas. External recruitment advertises outside (job boards, agencies): a wider pool with new skills, but more expensive, slower and the recruit is unproven. An internal recruit in a new role still needs some training.
Selection process and training methods
Selection runs in sequence: job description (the duties — what the job involves), person specification (the qualities the ideal candidate needs), application, shortlisting, then interview. Training methods: induction introduces a new employee to the organisation; on-the-job trains at the workplace while doing the job; off-the-job trains away from the workplace, at a college or training centre.
Dismissal, redundancy and legal controls
Dismissal ends an individual's contract because of that person's own conduct (e.g. theft) or poor performance — focus on the individual. Redundancy removes a role because the work is no longer needed (automation, closure) — the employee is not at fault; focus on the role. Legal controls protect employees: an employment contract, unfair-dismissal law (a fair reason and process), discrimination law, health-and-safety law and minimum-wage law.
Drawn from real examiner reports.
Internal recruits still need training
It is wrong to claim internal recruits need no training. Someone promoted or moved to a NEW role still has to learn its responsibilities and usually needs induction to a new team. The saving from internal recruitment is on advertising and on knowing the candidate — not on training. Treating the move as training-free loses the mark.
June 2022 P11 Q4(e): candidates wrongly assumed internal recruits would need no training.
Off-the-job ≠ outside working hours
Off-the-job training means learning AWAY FROM the workplace — at a college or training centre. It has nothing to do with the time of day and can happen in normal working hours. The error is off-the-job means outside working hours. What makes it off-the-job is the LOCATION. On-the-job training, by contrast, happens at the workplace while doing or shadowing the actual job.
June 2022 P12 Q2(a) and Nov 2022 P11 Q1(a): many candidates defined off-the-job training as occurring outside working hours rather than away from the workplace.
Induction ≠ on-the-job training
Induction training is the orientation EVERY new employee gets on joining — colleagues, rules, layout, health-and-safety. It settles someone into the ORGANISATION; it does not teach job tasks. On-the-job training teaches the actual JOB at the workplace. A new nurse given a tour is receiving induction; being taught a procedure at the bedside is on-the-job training.
Nov 2022 P13 Q3(d): induction training was confused with on-the-job and off-the-job training, candidates giving on-the-job features when induction was asked about.
Redundancy removes a role, not a person
Writing about misconduct in a redundancy question confuses it with dismissal. Dismissal ends a person's contract because of their own behaviour or performance — the role may still exist. Redundancy removes a role because the work is no longer needed — the person is not at fault and may get redundancy pay. Test: closing a department = redundancy; a theft = dismissal.
Nov 2022 P12 Q3(c): candidates explained reasons for redundancy rather than the criteria and confused it with dismissal by focusing on the individual.
Job description ≠ person specification
Often reversed. A job description describes the JOB — its duties and conditions. A person specification describes the PERSON — the skills, qualifications and qualities the ideal candidate needs. The weakest answers restate a description of the job for job description and earn zero. Ask: what will the role involve, versus what should the candidate be like?
June 2023 P11 Q3(a): job description and person specification were confused; the weakest responses restated a description of the job and gained zero marks.
Internal recruitment creates a new vacancy
Filling a vacancy internally does not remove the need to recruit — it moves it. When an employee is promoted or redeployed, they leave their old post empty, so a further, lower-level vacancy is created that may be filled externally. Strong answers note this: internal recruitment only DELAYS external recruitment, it does not avoid it.
Nov 2023 P22 Q3(a): only stronger candidates noted that internal recruitment creates a further vacancy requiring external filling.
Justify: make a supported judgement
A 6-mark Justify needs a supported judgement, not a balanced list: develop both sides, apply them to the named firm, then decide and say WHY one outweighs the other here and why the alternative is less suitable. A decision alone is not evaluation.
Mirror arguments score once
On-the-job is cheaper while off-the-job is dearer is the SAME point — cost — credited once, not twice. For a second mark, make a genuinely different point from different knowledge, such as off-the-job using specialist trainers who raise quality.
Analyse: build the chain to a consequence
An analyse or explain answer chains knowledge to a consequence: point, mechanism, result. Do not stop at external recruitment is more expensive — say why: the firm pays for wider advertising and agency fees. Without the mechanism, answers stay at knowledge marks.
A business needs to recruit when:
The aim is to find the right person with the right skills for the right job at the right time and cost.
Internal recruitment fills the vacancy from the existing workforce (promotion, redeployment).
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