Despite your best efforts, sometimes people aren’t what they seem. Maybe a job candidate padded their resume and their skills aren’t what you need; maybe they put on a great act and presented themselves as someone who would be a good fit for your high-performing team but fell flat shortly after coming onboard. 

Bad hires happen. An estimated 74% of hiring managers say they’ve made a mistake in bringing on a candidate who didn’t work out. For what it’s worth, job candidates also can realize they made a mistake in accepting a job; often they’ll realize in about six months that the job isn’t what they expected or that they aren’t right for the position. 

Unfortunately, a bad hire has many implications: one bad hire might cost your company several thousand dollars, up to around $17,000, when factoring in the interview process, onboarding, training and benefits, all of which are lost when a new employee turns in their notice or is asked to leave. There’s also the amount of time lost by going through all these processes; that’s a resource you cannot recoup.

That says nothing of the frustration felt by your current employees, who are likely having to take on extra tasks to cover for the open position. If someone isn’t hired and trained and up to speed in a reasonable amount of time, they might consider leaving the job if they feel things aren’t going to get better, leaving you with two open positions and the loss of institutional knowledge that is so beneficial to new hires. Frustration spreads quickly among a stressed-out team and is something you want to nip in the bud as quickly as possible — by making a good hire. 

First, let’s take a look at how bad hires happen; then we’ll consider how those mistakes can be avoided. 

Bad hires can fall into several categories: the employee can’t perform at their expected level; they have a bad attitude or can’t work well with your existing team; their skills aren’t what they said they were and they need more extensive training and onboarding than expected; in some cases, there’s an immediate attendance problem shortly after starting the job. 

When asked how the bad hire managed to find their way into a position, hiring managers have admitted to not performing the most thorough background check, failing to contact references or ask them good enough questions about the candidate, or not asking the candidate sufficient questions or providing a skills assessment to identify those gaps up front. 

If you’ve had a bad hire — or maybe a few in the span of a few years — there are steps you can take to avoid this problem in the future. 

First, assess the situation from all angles. Talk with your hiring team, openly and honestly, about the shortcomings of the candidates to determine where things went wrong. This isn’t about blame; it’s about finding solutions to avoid this in the future. 

 Second, decide how you’re going to change your practices. How do you make sure your job candidates are who they say they are, with the skills they claim to have? It might be time to adopt different skills assessments, to ask for work samples or otherwise have a candidate demonstrate their abilities before you bring them on. Is it time to conduct different, more thorough background checks to verify someone’s experience? Both of these are tasks that partnering with a staffing agency, like FurstStaffing , can assist with! 

Third, examine your job descriptions. Make sure you’re being incredibly clear with the expectations for someone coming into a job. Spell out exactly what you’re looking for and what skills a good candidate needs to have. Don’t mince words or try to gloss over what you need; that can set the candidate and your company up for failure in the future. 

 Fourth, consider partnering with a staffing agency. FurstStaffing has been working with companies like yours for decades and has a solid system in place to help you find qualified candidates quickly. We’ll perform background checks and skills assessments on your behalf and will only bring forward for consideration people we believe hit all the marks you’ve established for a top-notch candidate. We can conduct initial interviews and secure references to see if the candidate feels real and truthful about their abilities and experience. And we can do all of this on your behalf so you can keep your company running. We’ll bring you the candidates we feel are most qualified; you take it from there. We can even help with onboarding  — and if you need someone to fill in the position temporarily while you’re looking for a permanent hire, we can provide that assistance as well. 

Bad hires are a headache but they don’t need to become a widespread disaster. If you’ve had one or more bad hires recently, consider giving FurstStaffing a call to learn about how we can help you avoid them in the future.