Bad hires cost $15,000, plague 74% of employers

When it comes to costly workplace mistakes, few carry as hefty a price tag as a bad hire. According to a new CareerBuilder survey, companies last year lost an average of $14,900 every time they made a hiring mistake. It’s a common mistake, too. Seventy-four percent of employers say they’ve hired the wrong person for a position.

The survey, conducted by Harris Poll, included a representative sample of 2,257 full-time hiring managers and HR professionals across industries and company sizes in the U.S. private sector.

When asked how a bad hire affected their business in the last year, employers cited less productivity (37%), lost time to recruit and train another worker (32%) and poor quality of work (31%).

How the bad hire happened

How do you know if you’ve hired the wrong person? When asked what factors led to the hiring mistake, respondents said:

• While the candidate didn’t have all the needed skills, thought they could learn quickly: 35%
• Candidate lied about his or her qualifications: 33%
• Took a chance on a nice person: 32%
• Pressured to fill the role quickly: 30%
• Had a hard time finding qualified candidates: 29%
• Focused on skills and not attitude: 29%
• Ignored warning signs: 25%
• Lacked adequate tools to find the right person: 10%
• Didn’t do a complete background check: 10%
• Didn’t work closely enough with HR: 7%