Two-Thirds of Business Experienced Bad Hires in 2012, says CareerBuilder

A new survey from CareerBuilder has shown that 69 percent of employers report being negatively affected by a bad hiring decision within the past year with 41 percent of this group estimating costs exceeding $25,000 per bad hire. An additional 24 percent said bad hires cost them in excess of $50,000 per hire. Rosemary Haefner, vice president of HR at CareerBuilder said:

”Whether it’s a negative attitude, lack of follow through or other concern, the impact of a bad hire is significant. Not only can it create productivity and morale issues, it can also affect the bottom line.”

The most common costs reported by survey respondents included:

• Less productivity (39 percent)

• Lost time due to additional recruitment and training (39 percent)

• Cost to recruit and train an additional worker (35 percent)

• Lowered employee morale (33 percent)

• Negative impact on clients (19 percent)

• Decreased sales (11 percent)

• Legal issues (9 percent)

Employers classified a bad hire with several behavioral and performance-related issues including:

• Producing low quality work (67 percent)

• Not working well with other employees (60 percent)

• Presenting a negative attitude (59 percent)

• Immediate attendance problems (54 percent)

• Customer complaints about the employee (44 percent)

• Failure to meet deadlines (44 percent)

The most common reasons cited by employers for making a bad hiring decision included:

• Needing to quickly fill a job vacancy (43 percent)

• Insufficient talent intelligence (22 percent)

• Improperly adjusted sourcing techniques (13 percent)

• Fewer recruiters for vetting candidates (10 percent)

• Not checking references (9 percent)

• Lack of strong employment brand (8 percent)

The remaining respondents (26 percent) said that they were unsure of why a bad hiring decision was made, chalking it up to simple mistakes made during the hiring process.