Hire Employees Right the First Time With These Tips to Avoid Bad Hires

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It’s a fact: Hiring managers can miss the mark from time to time. In a recent Robert Half survey, nearly one in four managers (23%) confessed to making a bad hire in the past year.

Hiring mistakes can be disruptive to your business. They can sap workforce productivity and bring down team morale. And if your hiring misstep is serious enough, it could make your top performers think about heading for the exit door.

Time is another thing that a bad hire can cost you. Our research shows that it takes about 11 weeks to let a bad hire go — and then another eight to staff the open position. That means you’re looking at almost five months of not running at full capacity, plus spending valuable resources to secure a new hire for the same role, again.

What’s the solution? Hiring the right employee from the outset, of course. Here’s a look at six strategies to help you do that.

A quarter of the managers we surveyed told us that budget constraints were the main culprit behind their hiring mistakes. In other words, you get what you pay for.

The latest Salary Guide From Robert Half reports that more than half of companies are boosting starting salaries this year to secure top talent.

Do your homework on current salary trends before you even post a job ad. Making clear to potential hires from the outset that your business is prepared to offer competitive compensation gives you a fighting chance to attract in-demand professionals.

About 20% of managers who told us they made bad hires attributed their mistake to focusing too much on technical skills when evaluating candidates, and not enough on soft skills.

It’s understandable — technical skills are easy to find on a resume and measure in the hiring process. But soft skills like empathy and emotional intelligence are even more vital in today’s workplaces because they are inherently human qualities that advanced tools like artificial intelligence can’t replicate.

It might be trickier to assess a candidate’s soft skills, but it’s vital to do so. Asking behavioral or hypothetical questions during the interview can help you gauge a candidate’s problem-solving abilities, creativity and critical-thinking skills.

Expanding your search to include remote candidates isn’t just a fashionable move. It’s a strategy that can significantly improve your hiring outcomes.

In a Robert Half survey, one in five managers said that restricting their search to local talent contributed to making a bad hire. It’s a cautionary tale in a world where remote work has become a top priority for many professionals and a critical staffing strategy for many leading employers.

According to our latest Salary Guide, 40% of companies are open to hiring from anywhere, and 61% of job seekers say they’re more inclined to apply for positions that offer remote or hybrid work options.

When you consider remote candidates in your hiring process, it keeps you in tune with modern workforce expectations — and expands your access to in-demand talent beyond your local market.

Not sure how or where to start? A talent solutions firm like Robert Half can help you navigate the ins and outs of bringing on remote talent. Find out more.

The ideal candidate for a role you need to staff may already be on your team. Current employees know your work environment inside and out. That’s a significant plus, given that half of employers we surveyed said finding candidates who match the company culture will be a top hiring challenge in 2024.

Invest in your own people by offering meaningful opportunities for growth. Hands-on training, cross-skilling and career development programs are all great options. Succession planning also helps employees visualize their future within your organization and prepare for the next step up.

Tapping your current employee base when hiring can also boost retention. When your workers see you’re committed to helping them grow, they’ll be more inclined to stick around.

Robert Half’s research shows that a slow hiring process can lead to employers missing out on quality candidates. More than half (52%) of managers told us that they expect their greatest hiring challenge for the first half of this year will be moving fast enough to land the best talent.

If you interview a candidate who meets most of your hiring criteria and you believe can get up to speed quickly with minimal training, don’t hold out for a "flawless" candidate. Take swift action to make an offer to this high-potential candidate, provided other critical steps like reference and background checks have been completed. When you move fast to hire an employee, you want to do so with confidence.

Recruiters can play a critical role in helping you hire the employees your business needs — and prevent hiring mistakes. They can also save you time, effort and a great deal of stress in the hiring process by managing everything from posting job opportunities to reviewing resumes to handling reference checks.

The best recruiters to work with are those who have knowledge and experience of your industry, plus an understanding of your business and the nuances of the employment market. The recruiters at Robert Half, for example, have built long-standing relationships with industry professionals, including active job seekers and passive job seekers who might consider changing roles to work for you.

Robert Half also maintains a deep and broad network of vetted professionals with in-demand skills and relevant experience, including millions of candidates who can work remotely. So, we can quickly find one person or an entire team, depending on your needs.

Ready to get started? Learn more about our services.

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