In recent years, the job market has been described as an unforgiving, fast-paced environment. The demand for quality candidates as well as available jobs affects both employer and employee. This model causes shortcuts to be taken, just to ensure that seats are filled and people are working. How do you as an employer ensure that you have the right candidate for the job? In this month’s article we are focusing on The Hidden Cost of a Bad Hire (And How to Avoid It). Hiring quickly only solves the short-term problem, and in most cases causes long-term damage.
Why One Bad Hire Can Cost You More Than You Think
Sometimes the cost of a bad hire is easy to see. Other times they go unnoticed for far too long, further perpetuating the problem. The costs can be separated into two types: tangible and intangible. Your tangible costs of a bad hire are easy to spot; they are what you directly spent money on. Examples are recruiting expenses, training investments (such as time and resources) and severance/re-hiring costs. All these explicitly cost your company money, and each time that you hire quickly you might be sacrificing these things.
Intangible costs are harder to spot. They relate to relationships, company environment, and productivity. A bad hire can impact the success of your company’s working environment, or possibly your relationships with your clients. Your employees are a representation of your company, meaning that if the hire was rushed it’s possible you might not have found the best representative for your company. In addition, your company’s internal environment can become less productive, due to gaps in skill or performance, and overall team morale can decline due to frustration. Whether the costs of a bad hire are tangible or intangible, both can cause damage to your company internally, and should be avoided. So why do companies often find themselves with a bad hire?
Breaking Down the Root Causes of Bad Hires
Most bad hires aren’t bad people; they are just the wrong match for the role or the company. Bad hires happen when employers rush the hiring process, use vague job descriptions, have no structured interview process, don’t check references, or just simply overlook the cultural fit within your office.
Rushing through the hiring process forces you to skip steps and settle with a candidate due to time constraints. Vague job descriptions bring in a larger pool of candidates, but they may be missing critical skills due to the description not listing them. Using detailed job descriptions allows you to pre-screen candidates and prevents underqualified people from applying.
The structure of the interview process is crucial to ensuring that candidates feel as though your company has structure. When interviewing is lackadaisical it makes candidates feel inclined to treat the job as such. The structure of the interviewing also sets a schedule and allows for a hiring timeline.
When employers feel the need to rush into hiring someone, they often skip the reference checks and other crucial screenings. References exist so that employers can hear feedback about their new potential employee. When this step is overlooked, potential problems are as well.
Lastly, you should ensure that candidates fit within your company’s culture and environment. If a hired candidate does not match the mission of your company they are not going to help you achieve it. Every person has their own culture they bring to the table. It’s important to note that companies should be hiring employees that fit within the company culture. Miscommunication throughout the hiring process can result in problems identified too late, thus leading to a bad hire.
Your Action Plan to Avoid Costly Hiring Mistakes
The ways to avoid making a bad hire can seem self-explanatory, especially after we’ve addressed why bad hires occur. The first way to avoid a bad hire is to slow down. As we said previously, rushing through the hiring process only makes things worse and thus further wasting your company’s time. To avoid a bad hire, slow down and take the time to define exactly what you are looking for, not just skillsets but also personality-wise. Using a structured interviewing process can help with time management. Following a step-by-step procedure for screening and interviewing candidates helps filter candidates though scheduled events, allowing for a productive hiring timeline. In addition, having set interview questions allows for interviews to flow easily, and for you to easily determine whether a candidate is going to be a good fit for you and your company.
Working with a professional recruiting company such as Optimum RTS removes the stress of hiring and finding the perfect candidate. We handle that for you. We vet hundreds of candidates a week, specifically pinpointing what our clients are searching for, both skills-wise and personality-wise. Once we have located a candidate that we think will be a good fit on paper, we interview them prior to sending them to you. By interviewing candidates throughout the whole process, it allows us to ensure that you are only receiving candidates qualified for your job. We don’t just fill jobs; we find the right people for the right roles.
Once we have submitted the candidates to your company, you interview them and then finally decide whether the candidate will become an employee. If you feel as though we did not find the right match, we start the entire process over and will continue until we have found your perfect candidate. We are only paid once, and that is when you have decided that the candidate is exactly what you’re looking for. In addition, if a recently hired Optimum RTS candidate doesn’t end up working out, we will start the search again without any added fee until you are satisfied. Our proven recruiting process helps clients avoid the costly mistake of a bad hire. Whether you’re hiring entry-level or executive-level, temp or perm, we are here to help.
Bad hires are more common than they should be, especially when there are effective ways to avoid them. By learning how to identify and prevent bad hires, you can save your company both time and money. At Optimum RTS, we’re here to help you find the right person for the job. With our expertise, your company can avoid the costly consequences of a bad hire and stay focused on what you do best.
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