A Hit or a Miss? Two Simple Tactics to Avoid Hiring Failure
It can be frustrating, to say the least, when you thought you’ve found the perfect hire, only to receive their resignation letter in three weeks claiming that they “don’t think this is the right job” for them. The average cost of one hiring failure can equal 30% of the employee’s annual salary. For positions at a more senior level, the number is even higher.
Realistically speaking, bad apples exist everywhere regardless of where you work, but sometimes a ‘bad hire’ isn’t necessarily equivalent to being terrible at the job or having awful work ethic. In fact, 89% of bad hires are found to be the result of poor cultural fit, often which emerged from:
- Relying too much on interviews and allowing subconscious bias to manipulate your hiring decisions
- Treating your new hires as a replacement rather than an addition to the company
- Focusing too much on a candidate’s skills and qualifications, and not on team-fit
Perhaps it’s time to redefine the purpose of hiring in the first place. Are you hiring people just to do the work, or are you looking for someone to help your business grow?
Patience is Virtue
The urge to fill in the gap whenever an employee leaves is completely normal yet risky. It is exactly this desperation to replace someone quickly that bad hiring decisions were even made to begin with. Stop hiring for the sake of substituting labour and start seeing your new hires as an asset to the company. For example, keep your career site open for applications even when you don’t have immediate positions available. Allow yourself the time to screen candidates thoroughly without succumbing to pressure. Take it slow – and eventually you’ll have nothing but a pool of strong talents at your door.
Give Yourself Something Tangible
Finding the right fit looks incredibly easy when your go-to strategy is to check off boxes based on a résumé and cover letter. Yet, hiring someone who will actually stay in the company requires more than just a piece of paper. While most leaders these days seem to understand the importance of ‘job-fit’, not many know exactly how to measure it.
To be fair, the use of recruitment tools only grew popular this decade as digital approach becomes necessary for businesses to grow in today’s competitive market. According to a study by Aberdeen Group, companies that use pre-hire screening reported a 39% lower turnover rate. The results of a comprehensive pre-hiring assessment allow employers to measure a candidate’s skills, interests and personality – turning abstract qualities such as innovation and adaptability into something tangible for better decision-making.
Hiring may feel like a hit or a miss sometimes. But if there are ways and tools to help you win more than lose, why wouldn’t you consider them?