All organizations have experienced the effects of a bad hire at some point, and managers likely know how disruptive and expensive it can be when the wrong candidate is chosen for a key position. In the worst-case scenario, a bad hire can have such an impact on the dynamics of your team that you might see a considerable effect on productivity, morale and even your bottom line.
It’s especially important that you pay attention to your hiring process in times of crisis and economic downturn. Businesses across Canada have realized the weaknesses in their recruitment strategy due to the COVID-19 pandemic and how it changed the way most industries work.
In this blog post, we’ll take a look at the importance of avoiding a bad hire, and we’ll walk you through 6 actionable steps that will help you improve your recruitment process. Let’s get started!
What is a bad hire?
A bad hire is when the person you hired for a job is unable to carry out what you expect of them. Whether they’re simply not performing or just not having the intended positive impact on your organization that you thought they would, a bad hire can be a drag on your team’s productivity and morale.
You might think you’ve made a hiring mistake but aren’t exactly sure why. Here are five characteristics of a bad hire.
Your new employee:
- Is not producing the quality of work you expected
- Doesn’t get along with their team or has a negative attitude
- Doesn’t have the knowledge or skills they claimed to have
- Is unable to receive feedback and constructive criticism
- Is constantly late for work or regularly doesn’t show up.
Of course, you can successfully address some of the above issues. For example, if your new hire isn’t quite as skilled as you expected in a certain area, providing them with upskilling opportunities could be enough to remedy the problem. In more severe cases, however, holding on to a bad hire can be extremely expensive and could even drive some of your star employees to look for employment elsewhere.
If you’re still not convinced that a poor hiring choice can damage your business, let’s look at the numbers. A bad hire could cost you up to 30% of their annual salary.
Why is a recruitment strategy important?
If you want to hire the best talent for your organization, then you need a recruitment strategy. This is even more important in 2021 as companies struggle to find high-quality talent in a turbulent economy. Remote hiring has its advantages, but it also means that hiring managers have had to overhaul the way they find, interview and onboard talent. While they might have adapted their talent search to suit an increasingly remote world of work, the pandemic has been a drastic wake-up-call for organizations that have inefficient recruitment processes.
So what exactly are the advantages of having a proper recruitment strategy? One of the most obvious advantages is the ability to find and hire the best candidates for the job. This will help you grow your organization, make sure it’s resilient and adaptable, and will give you confidence in knowing that your employees are competent at what they do.
Another often overlooked upside to implementing good hiring practices is the money your company will save. This can be seen in reduced costs related to training, employee turnover, and increased revenue depending on the position of your new hire.
Six recruiting tips to avoid a bad hire
Now that you know the pitfalls of hiring the wrong person and the importance of having a recruitment strategy, you’re ready to start making changes to the way you find and hire talent. To help you get your organization on the path to effective recruitment, here are our top 6 actionable steps to avoiding bad hires.
Use a variety of interview questions
Interviewing can be one of the most effective filters to determine which candidates are a good fit for your organization and the position that you’re hiring for. Making the job interview process as thorough as possible with a variety of different question styles can be a great way to keep your candidates on their toes. Oddball interview questions are used by companies like Apple and Google to see how candidates respond when they’re asked something that’s not easily rehearsed for. An example of this kind of question is: “if you had a choice between two superpowers, being invisible or flying, which would you choose?” These questions give you a look into the creative and critical-thinking process of your candidate and give them a chance to provide honest answers to abstract questions that they weren’t expecting.
Represent your company accurately
While it’s important that you talk to candidates about the benefits of working at your organization, you should do so honestly and accurately. Painting an accurate picture of the responsibilities of the position, the company culture, and the expectations you have of them are fundamental at every stage of the hiring process. Doing this will reduce the chances of hiring someone that doesn’t fit with the company culture and gives candidates a chance to back out if they feel the position isn’t right for them.
Learn from your mistakes
Making changes to how you find and hire people is a powerful way of avoiding bad hires, but it’s also important that you learn from your mistakes. Carrying out exit interviews gives you valuable insight into why employees are leaving your company, and whether the recruiting process had something to do with their departure. This also allows you to see what factors you could change to make new hires feel welcome, committed and motivated as soon as they become part of your organization.
Thoroughly check resume details
This might seem a little basic but paying attention to the minor details on a candidate’s resume could help you weed out the bad hires from the early stages of your recruitment process. If a candidate’s resume shows a history of leaving jobs after short periods, this could be an indication of poor soft skills, inadequate performance or other undesirable characteristics that could cost you time and money. You should also check professional references to make sure they match the information on the resume and ask candidates to tell you about their work experience or skills to ensure they’re not exaggerating their eligibility for the position.
Look for red flags
Throughout the hiring process, you’re likely to notice some clear signs that a candidate is not right for the job. If someone has a bad attitude, is repeatedly late for virtual interviews or calls, gives vague answers to interview questions, or has a negative online presence, these could be red flags telling you that they’re a bad hire. By developing your ability to spot these red flags at different stages of your talent search, you’ll save yourself the trouble of hiring a problematic and unprofessional candidate.
Set your new hire up for success
Creating a welcoming and hassle-free virtual onboarding process is one of the best ways to avoid having your new hire turn “bad.” Make sure you inform your new employee about what to expect in their first three months at the organization and establish clear communication channels between them, HR and the rest of their team so that they feel comfortable enough to reach out for support. Starting a new job remotely can feel lonely and disconnected compared to onsite work, so organizing introductory calls and virtual social events with your new employee’s team can make all the difference in setting them up for success from day one.
So, there you have our insider take on avoiding bad hiring decisions in the virtual hiring landscape for 2021! For more eye-opening insights that will transform how you see your organization, check out our other blog posts where we dish out plenty of valuable advice from our human resources and staffing experts.