Hire the Right Candidate for Your Business

Hiring the wrong person can cause a ripple effect across your business. A bad hire can negatively impact productivity, quality of work, and efficiency – not to mention your bottom line. And when you finally cut that bad hire, you’ll be tasked with revisiting the hiring process and training a replacement employee.

If you’ve made a bad hire, you’re not alone. A recent CareerBuilder survey found that 74% of small business owners have hired the wrong person. Another survey found that 95% of organizations admit to hiring a bad fit.

According to CareerBuilder, companies lost an average of nearly $15,000 last year for every hiring mistake. Other studies claim that losing a good employee can ultimately cost up to 1.5-2 times the employee’s annual salary.

One way to avoid making this expensive hiring error is to avoid just settling on the most skills-qualified candidate for a particular role. A recent Forbes article suggests asking culture-focused questions during the phone screening or in-person interview to gauge how a candidate will fit in and adapt to your company’s culture. If a candidate’s not a great culture fit for your business, then he’s not a great hire – even if he has the skills, or more, to do the job.

Most hiring managers recommend beginning the hiring process with an accurate job description that clearly states the role and its requirements. Establish hiring criteria and evaluate applicants based solely on that list. A well-defined position at the beginning of the hiring process can make a world of difference later.

It’s also worthwhile to take a few minutes and look up candidates on Google to see who they are online. Look them up on social media and see how they represent themselves and their current employer(s). This will give you an idea of how they may represent your business. 

Hiring a new employee is tough and might cost your business money in the short term. The entire process can take several weeks or even months. From drafting the job description, to sifting through applications, screening interviewees, scheduling interviews, and finally making the decision – it’s an exhausting process. However, the upfront trouble is all worth it to avoid the even more costly mistake of making a wrong hire.