How to Prevent A Bad Hire

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How much does a bad hire cost? It depends on the position, but the U.S. Department of Labor estimates that the average “bad hire” costs a company about 30% of the employee’s salary. If you’re a small business, a few unfortunate hires could substantially hurt your bottom line.  

We’ve previously discussed the true cost of a bad hire, but today we want to dive in to how you can avoid hiring candidates that are the wrong fit in the first place. 

Use Multiple Interviewers 

It’s easy to overlook things when you are the only person seeing them. It’s incredibly important to get multiple, diverse perspectives on something as impactful as hiring a new team member. We at Skywalk Group always have different people from multiple teams interview potential new employees; not only does this provide more than one perspective on their qualifications and personality, but it also introduces the candidate to more than one person they could be working with in the future. 

Get to Know the Candidates 

Interviewing is an in-depth process, but it still only scratches the surface of who a person really is. Get to know your candidates on a more familiar level and you’ll have a better idea of whether they are the right fit for your organization. That doesn’t mean becoming Facebook friends, but it might mean having lunch together, or asking them questions about their interests and hobbies outside of work.  

Don’t Rush the Process 

A common mistake we see is hiring for quantity over quality. When organizations are hurting for hires, there is often a mindset of getting people placed as fast as possible, instead of taking the time to make sure they are truly the right fit for the job and the organization. This is a recipe for disaster. It might seem prudent to fill those open positions as fast as possible, but it will cost you more money in the long term if you hire the wrong people and have to recast your net in a few weeks or months.  

Hire for Culture Add 

We discussed this in a previous post, but often what companies look for in a candidate is the potential likeness with their current team, including similar skills, backgrounds, and experience. While this might seem like a good idea at first, your team doesn’t need more of what it already has! 

Hiring the same types of employees as you already have not only creates redundancy among your staff, which can lead to low morale and future reductions, but it also reduces diversity and can lead to tunnel vision. Hiring for culture add, or what you’re lacking instead of what you already have, creates a new variety of opinions, views, and add vital skills that you might be missing. 

Understand Your Organization First 

You can’t search for the right candidate if you don’t know what type of person will fit in best with your company. It’s imperative you understand what your organization’s vision, culture, and work style really are. You might find a candidate with the right experience and skill set, but if your organization has a horizontal culture and works completely remotely, and this person hates working from home and prefers strong leadership... well, they might not stay for long. 

Occasionally, you’ll hire the wrong person for your team, it does happen! But you can substantially decrease the chances of that happening if you follow some of the guidelines above. If you need help sourcing or screening the right candidates for your open positions, reach out to us here!