Recruitment refers to the overall process of attracting, selecting and appointing suitable candidates for jobs within an organisation, either permanent or temporary. Recruitment can also refer to processes involved in choosing individuals for unpaid positions, such as voluntary roles or training programmes.
Recruitment may be undertaken in-house by managers, human resource
generalists and/or recruitment specialists. Alternatively, parts of the process
may be undertaken by either public-sector employment agencies, commercial
recruitment agencies, or specialist search consultancies.
The use of internet-based services and computer technologies to support all
aspects of recruitment activity and processes has become widespread.
In the context of evolution,
certain traits or alleles
of genes segregating
within a population may be subject to selection. Under selection,
individuals with advantages or "adaptive" traits tend to be more
successful than their peers reproductively—meaning they contribute more
offspring to the succeeding generation than others do. When these traits have a
genetic basis, selection can increase the prevalence of those traits, because offspring
will inherit
those traits from their parents. When selection is intense and persistent,
adaptive traits become universal to the population or species, which may then
be said to have evolved.