Poor Hiring Decisions Lead to Managers Wasting Hours

Managers are vital to the growth of organizations. Managers lead teams, strategically drive projects, draw budgets, build and maintain relationships and manage individual employees, too. Managers are sort of all-rounders who keep teams, projects and departments together and aligned.

Ever imagined that the cost of bad hiring is more than one thinks – it affects managers. While the monetary cost of poor hiring could be at least 30% of the employees annual salary, experts put morale, impact on productivity, and loss of time for managers ahead of financial cost. Managers spend 26% of their time in training underperforming employees. This time could be spent on managers doing something more productive. The reason companies end up with underperforming or average employees – poor hiring. 

Are there ways in which managers can avoid poor hiring? Experts suggest observing certain behaviors of candidates during interviews.

The candidate is late for the interview

Being late by a minute or two is acceptable. Factors such as traffic or an incident on the road cannot be predicted. But if a candidate is late by 30 minutes or more should lead the candidate in the list of rejected candidates. It is the hiring manager’s responsibility to keep a check or assign a team member to note the time each candidate entered the office.

The candidate behaves rudely or arrogantly with the office staff

If a candidate behaves badly with any of the office staff – the liftman, receptionist, or any other staff member, it should be considered a red flag. If a candidate shows unruly behavior during the time of a job interview, imagine what the temperament of that person is and how it could harm your team and office culture.

The candidate speaks ill of the ex-employer

Bad mouthing an ex-employer is one of the biggest signs of not hiring a candidate. The hiring manager should tactfully squeeze in questions about the ex-employer in the hiring process. Such a candidate could easily engage in office gossip and spread gossip around the office and is best avoided.

The candidate hasn’t done the basic research about the job/company

A candidate coming in for an interview without preparation is a sign of laziness or lack of engagement, lack of enthusiasm and drive. Managers might have to spend a considerable amount of time in training or even pushing such employees to finish their work. This is not just a waste of the time of the manager but it also costs the company financially. Imagine if the time spent following up with the employee was spent in doing something more productive.

These are a few factors to be observed in candidates during the interview. But there’s more than meets the eye when it comes to hiring freshers. Just as the saying goes, ‘Do not judge a book by its cover’, it is important not to judge a job candidate by their appearance. The scrutiny needs to be much deeper. Think background screening.

The solution - screening candidates

Companies know the hiring challenges. What’s the solution? 

• A key solution is to improve the hiring process. Enhancing the recruitment process may mean different things for different companies. It could include adding more experts to the recruitment team, introducing certain hiring practices such as background verification.
• Reference checks are crucial in the hiring process. Companies should either conduct reference checks in-house or hire a professional verification agency that can help them conduct reference checks on new employees and candidates.
• Candidates should be vetted overall – from education and professional background to skills and achievement in their past companies.

However, companies must take a realistic approach to hiring employees. Not every newly recruited employee would have the desired package of skills to perform brilliantly right away. Skills can be learned. Performance can be improved. Conducting the hiring process well takes care of half the challenge. When companies recruit competent candidates, managers can focus their time and energies on utilizing the skills of the new hires to improve team productivity and company growth. 

Are you recruiting new candidates for your organization? Do consider the impact of hiring people on your manager’s role. It will ensure you hire for competence.