Difference Between Recruiting and Staffing

In any organization or business, each of the people contributes their bit to lead the organization on the path to success. The staff members have different roles assigned to them.

If a place remains vacant, then it has to be filled up to ensure the proper functioning of the organization. The process of filling the vacant position is sometimes referred to as recruiting and some other times as staffing. 

Recruiting vs Staffing

The difference between recruiting and staffing is that recruiting is a process that involves finding the potential candidates and through a selection procedure choosing the best candidate from them for a particular position.

Staffing refers to the procedure of successfully retaining and building the human resources that play their roles efficiently and contribute to the organization’s success.

Recruiting for the vacant position refers to the process of finding the best fit for the position.

Staffing is a collective term referring to the acquisition, employment, development and retention of people in the organization.

Comparison Table

Parameter of Comparison	Recruiting	Staffing
What does it mean?	Recruitment is a process of finding the best potential that completely fits the position. In this procedure, candidates are invited to apply for the post and after that, through a certain procedure, the best candidate is selected among them to find the candidate that fills the position efficiently.	Staffing is a collective term that refers to the processes starting from recruiting candidates and continues to maintain the suitable and skillful human resources in the organization.
What is its role	Recruitment is done to fill the vacant positions with suitable human resources.	Staffing is done so that the organization can function efficiently and can have a lead on the way to success.
Type of function and its scope	Recruitment is a process or sub-process of staffing and therefore it has a limited scope.	Staffing is a managerial process that consists of several procedures and therefore it has a much wider scope.
Occurrence level	Recruitment occurs at the initial or early stages of any organization.	Staffing is a procedure that occurs at each level in an organization starting from the top position to the lowest position also it starts from the time one joins an organization and ends when he leaves the organization.
Time horizon	Recruitment is a short term procedure because it only involves finding the best potential for a particular position.	Staffing is a long term process since it starts from the initial stage of the recruitment and continues to successfully retaining the human resources.

What is Recruiting?

Recruiting is a process of finding the best potential for a vacant place in an organization. Recruitment starts from inviting candidates to apply for the further process and then conducting a pre-defined procedure to select the best candidate among them for the position and continues till the final selection is made.

During the recruitment procedure, the pooling of candidates is done through advertisements in magazines, newspapers, news channels, social media, etc. Recruitment can be conducted within an organization or outside the organization depending on the vacant profile. 

The recruitment process aims at hiring passive candidates who are looking forward to employment. It is conducted at the early levels in an organization, also it is a short term procedure that ends when the right candidate is hired.

Recruitment can be termed as a sub-process of staffing.

What is Staffing?

Staffing can be referred to as the addition and maintenance of capable human resources in an organization. It is a collective term referring to acquisition, development, maintenance and retaining the people in an organization.

Staffing can also be termed as a process to fill open roles in an organization. Staffing is a managerial process that is carried out at each level in the organization and therefore it has a wider scope.

It starts with recruitment and continues to successfully retaining the recruited candidates.

The aim of staffing is to seek active employers to play general and specific roles, it also aims at recognizing the importance and efficiency of each employer and assigning them roles based on their capabilities. It manages the employer throughout their work cycle.

Main Differences Between Recruitment and Staffing

1. The term recruiting refers to the process of finding the best possible potential for a vacant position in an organization, on the other hand, the term staffing is a collective term for recruiting, management, developing and retaining the people in the organization.
2. Recruitment is carried out to fill the vacant positions in the organizations, on the other hand, staffing is carried out for the betterment of the organization and to contribute towards the success of the institution.
3. Recruiting is a sub-process of staffing whereas staffing is a managerial process.
4. Recruitment only has a single step whereas staffing has a series of steps or procedures involved.
5. The scope of recruitment is less whereas the scope of staffing is much wider as compared to recruitment.
6. Recruitment is carried out in an organization at the early stages, on the other hand, staffing is carried out at each level in any organization.
7. Recruitment is a short term procedure since it ends after finding a suitable candidate for the position whereas staffing is a long term procedure since it starts from recruitment and ends when a person leaves the organization.

References

1. https://psycnet.apa.org/journals/cpb/59/2/91/
2. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1744-6570.1993.tb00866.x