Photo by Andre Hunter on Unsplash

In our recently published White Paper “Recruiting the Best: It’s not Who You Interview, It’s How” we outline the true costs of hiring the wrong candidate. Here’s an excerpt: 

Recruiting and hiring the right person is one of the most difficult and important tasks an organization undertakes. 

In a recent survey more than three out of four senior managers admitted that they recruited the wrong candidate for a role and that it took 11 weeks on average before they realized the poor fit (1).  A survey by CareerBuilder in Canada found that a bad hire wastes 27 weeks of an organization’s time, including an average of 7 weeks to hire a replacement (2).  The negative consequences of a bad hire include the cost in wasted time recruiting, onboarding and training, decreased staff morale and productivity, and increased stress on supervisory staff.  The cost of hiring the wrong person is estimated to be 1.5 to 3.5 times their annual salary (3). Avoiding the wrong hire requires assessment of an applicant’s soft skills including attributes such as ethical acumen, accountability, empathy, resilience, team work and collaboration.  Determining the soft skill attributes of potential candidates for front line positions up to leadership roles is essential to organizational performance in all workplaces, especially as organizations evolve with technology.  However, soft skills are more challenging to assess than technical and cognitive skills. Compounding the recruitment challenge is the increasing rate of voluntary turnover and early retirement that has been accelerated with the Pandemic.  This has put pressure on organizations to ensure that they have the labour resources to remain viable and to compete.   While Canada has not experienced the “Great Resignation” wave to the extent that the United States did in 2021, Canadian employers need to be prepared for a resignation wave in 2022.  A Bank of Canada survey in January 2022 indicated that 19.3% of workers expect to quit their current job in the next 12 months (4).

To read the full White Paper and references, please visit https://www.prospecthrmmi.com/whitepaper