A counterargument that comes to mind to the argument that recruitment and selection is a company’s most important function is that if other aspects of the business aren’t functioning well recruitment and selection can carry little to no value. I think recruitment and selection is always important and doing this well can transform a bad situation into a good one, but if other aspects of the company are failing it causes issues. If a marketing manager has no quality products to promote how can they actually succeed? Not only will they have a harder time succeeding, but they are likely to leave your company and move on to something better with  more harmonious business operations.

Another counterargument that comes to mind on this topic is that even if staffing is done well in one department, it doesn’t mean that one good employee in one department can do everything. An incredible marketing manager isn’t a product designer or quality control engineer. If all the money is poured into recruitment and selection then a company could potentially just have all this great talent with nothing for them to work with or improve for the company. It’s important for a company to cover all their bases. Similarly, a weakness of not prioritizing recruitment and selection is the other end of the spectrum, where there’s great structure and systems but unengaged employees. 

Similarly, I think it’s easy for a company to be too short sighted and want to focus too much on profits and things they can see. A strategic, long term thinking manager is more likely to see the benefits in doing diligence in recruitment and selection, but more profit hungry leaders would tend to focus more on where they can save.