recruit
ri-KROOT
/rɪˈkruːt/
To seek out and enroll new members or employees for an organization.
While 'hire' simply means to give someone a job, 'recruit' implies an active search or a systematic campaign to find the right talent.
The story behind the word. The word comes from the Old French 'recrue', meaning 'a growth' or 'new levy of troops'. It literally means to 'grow again', as in replenishing the ranks of an army.
Word relationships
- enlist: Enlist implies a more formal or military-style enrollment.
- hire: Hire is the general term for giving someone a job for pay.
- dismiss: To remove someone from a position.
- fire: To terminate employment due to performance or conduct.
Commonly confused with
- headhunt: Recruiting is general; headhunting specifically targets high-level individuals who aren't necessarily looking for work.
Word family
- recruitment (noun): The process of finding and hiring new employees.
- recruiter (noun): A person whose job is to find new people to join a company.
Collocations
- recruit talent
- recruit aggressively
- campus recruiting
Example sentences
- "The tech giant plans to recruit over a thousand software engineers this year to bolster its AI division." Business Strategy
- ""The company had to recruit from the local population to fill the lower ranks of the factory staff."" Literature
Memory hook
Think of 're-growing' a garden. When a company needs fresh talent, they 'recruit' to grow their team again. Recruit = Re-growth.
When not to use
Avoid using it for casual, one-off tasks like hiring a babysitter; use it for formal organizational growth.
Fun facts
- In the 17th century, a 'recruit' was specifically a fresh soldier brought in to replace one who had died or left.
Also appears in
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