International recruitment consultancy Robert Half reported that 46% of the businesses surveyed to develop a recently released report had made a bad hire in the past 12 months, with small businesses feeling the greatest impact.
At 61%, the biggest factor leading to a hire considered ‘bad’ was new staff not having the technical skills required in the role. Hey; People & Culture/HR readers, let that sink in a moment. The mantra that skills can be taught and recruitment should focus on cultural fit instead isn’t shared by your line managers when their new staff can’t operate at the technical level required in the job.
In a candidate-scarce global employment market, hiring people with technical shortfalls that you know about before you hire them and can address can help you get ahead of your competitors. So can discovering that your candidates’ technical skills fall way short of what you can hope to develop/train before they sign an employment contract.
The second biggest factor leading to bad hires was businesses feeling they rushed the recruitment process (56%). With candidates having competing job offers, the need to act quickly isn’t going away any time soon, but following our ‘fast and thorough’ recommendations, you should be able to make offers to candidates, or confidently reject them, within a day if you interview them well, run technical/cognitive tests and assess whether they have the personality profile suited to the role and your business. It may still feel rushed, but is more likely to be a thorough, yet fast hiring decision that you are less likely to regret.
Whilst the need for technical skills dominate the survey, cultural fit inevitably surfaces as a key issue to get right to avoid bad hires. Again, with the worlds most respected personality profiling questionnaires at your fingertips, there’s no reason for you to fall into this trap either.
Lastly, 44% of respondents reported a recognition that good candidate vetting was key to avoid making bad hires, as well as a willingness to learn from their mistakes. This is sweet music to our ears, so long as our clients and followers are among the 44% and reduce their bad hire frequency with great vetting. If you’re a 44-percenter, but haven’t tried working with us yet, get in touch to start thorough yet fast recruitment practices today.
This article was adapted from a piece originally authored by Mahalia Mayne and was first published here.