6 Hiring Mistakes That Can Cost Your Company a Fortune

“Hiring mistake? What’s the big deal? Yeah, so we lose one employee, there are thousands of those that can fill their shoes!” While pacifying yourself by saying this to yourself when a disgruntled employee leaves your company, it's good to be mindful of the costs incurred because of the employee that left. Costs? Yes, and it's quite a hefty amount keeping aside the time and energy that was spent considering a hiring manager’s mistakes

What happens if you make recruitment mistakes? According to careerbuilder.com, employers who were asked how a poor hire impacted their company in the previous year noted decreased productivity by 37 percent, extra time needed to find and train a replacement employee by 32 percent, and subpar job quality by 31 percent. And, that said, a circumstance where an employee leaves should lead to introspection and a reevaluation of the hiring methodology that your company is using. Before we dwell on hiring mistakes, let’s take a look at what a bad hire is.

What is a bad hire? What is the worst that a Hiring mistake can cause?

If you want a textbook definition of a bad hire, here it is, An employee that exhibits conduct that has a detrimental effect on team spirit, output, and important business relationships. What’s the worst this hiring mistake can do? Well, a poor hire could lead to conflict in the office, undermine employee motivation and output, and pose a real threat to the expansion of your company.

Now, couple this with the financial expenses for the hiring and onboarding process as well as for the employee's compensation, benefits, and other expenses. Next, think about the investment of time and money in hiring a replacement if the poor hire leaves. Finally, take into consideration the effects on the remaining members of your staff, such as how motivated they are, how morale is affected, how much time and money are needed to rectify or repeat a terrible hire's work, and how much more work managers must fit into their daily schedules to compensate for this shortcoming.

Now, keeping aside the damage to the finance and resource-related aspect that a look at how your company is also affected. The possibility of harming your company's reputation, particularly if poor hires come into contact with clients directly. These are priceless relationships that underperforming workers may forever damage. If you terminate an employee who wasn't a good fit for your business, there is a good chance that they may leave discouraged and enraged. There is a good chance that they tell others how poorly they felt about it. This may harm your brand in the long run by leaving a negative impression on potential hires and future candidates.

Now that you have an idea of the avalanche that could be started because of mishires, here are a few of the top hiring mistakes to avoid before you burn out the time, money, and resources of your company.

Recruitment mistake 1: The Hiring Mistake you may be guilty of: Hiring a candidate because you ‘know’ them.

While knowing someone personally is a good badge to show your empathic prowess, when it comes to hiring for the job, the skill takes precedence over other aspects to a large extent. Taking someone in because you owe that friend of yours or that friend you are inclined to push might be at the cost of company resources. In many cases similar to this you may be used as a loophole in the recruitment process. Hiring that friend of a friend, or that person who you might be inclined to push ahead may not have the right set of skills you need. Therefore, this hiring mistake can easily be avoided. And, if you are worried about hurting that friend’s feelings, remember that a true friend understands the situation they are putting you in if you end up taking a bad hire.

Recruitment mistake 2: The hiring mistake you might have made when you were held at gunpoint

That’s right! The gun held by deadlines and budget constraints could push you to make this mistake and eventually it could come back to haunt you. When overloaded, managers declare, "We need to hire someone right away." The situation puts you under tremendous stress leading to this very common hiring mistake. Everyone becomes quite vigilant. As soon as a new person who seems to know everything the job post requires comes bursting in, he is taken right away. With the limited information that you have, you push ahead to hire this person. Well, the consequence of taking in this hire can end up reflecting badly on you if it's a mishire.

Recruitment mistake 3: The hiring mistake that’s been learned over time: Not letting Actions speak louder than the words on the resume

It's hard to unlearn the learned mentality of preferring marks or the CGPA to determine the overall quality of a person or a candidate. But, here’s a fact, even the one with the highest CGPA might not know the particulars needed for the job role you have. So, make it a point to test the skills rather than the words in the resume or the grades they claim to have. Ensure recruiters and hiring managers have clarified expectations before the hire.

Recruitment mistake 4: The Hiring mistake you might be ignoring: Do they fit in or stick out?

Ignoring this aspect of how suitable is the worker to the office culture is important. The misfit will tend to underperform and set up bad morale in the office. Even the ablest candidates will underperform if their working style clashes with the hiring manager, if they don’t fit with the team and company culture, and if they’re not intrinsically motivated to do the actual work required with the resources provided. The reasons for their non-functionality may have deeply rooted reasons, so verifying if they fit within the work environment is very important.

Recruitment mistake 5: The Hiring mistake that can set off an avalanche: not picking the right kind of help

This is the age of ATSs, CRMs, and skill assessment platforms. The right thing to do is to take help from specialists but if you pick the platform or the resource person that does not align with your visions and requirements, you might as well have done the hiring yourself and learned from the mistake you made.

Once you've hired top-notch people, be sure to smoothly integrate them into your staff. The long-term success of new hires depends on a thorough, structured onboarding procedure, which can also increase employee engagement and retention.

Most businesses recognize the value of giving new hires practical information, such as specifics about benefits packages, parking, and other necessities, but don't forget to add a human touch. Greeting cards from management and coworkers, for instance, might provide a new hire with a sense of encouragement. Instead of concentrating solely on orientation and paperwork, other effective onboarding tactics involve introducing the employee to the company's culture and objectives. Peer mentorship can also strengthen team relationships and provide new hires with a sense of support.

Recruitment mistake 6: The hiring mistake that could kick you back to the stone age: Not keeping pace

It takes innovation that is both meaningful and best-in-class to succeed in the hiring world. A solid talent base is essential for this. After you've chosen the finest candidates, it's critical to keep advancing their skills so they can consistently exceed the competition.

Instead of providing their workers with basic sales training, prosperous SaaS organizations across the US invested heavily in specialized software sales training providers. These specialized needs cannot be met by general sales training, making the return on investment from training expenses moderately low.

Conclusion

Is it all doom and gloom for hirers? Is there a sure-shot way to avoid mishires? Talentboard.org stresses that 82 percent of companies use some form of skill-based assessments to avoid mishires. Frankly, a skill-based assessment is the one-word solution to avoid all the mistakes mentioned above. Now, if you are getting ready to prepare yourself to get the best skill assessment out there, you can breathe easily. We already have the best one you can count on and don’t just stake our word for it. Get on a quick call with our experts and surely, you’ll be at ease with the solution we’ve got to offer.

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