Making a bad hiring decision …ouch

Most hiring managers, HR, leaders, and owners have all had the experience of making the wrong hiring
decision; myself included this error hopefully has taught you a lesson. Ironically usually it does not.
There are many reasons we make the wrong decision and knowing these in advance my hope is it will help
you to avoid it!!

A few reasons:

• Need to hire someone NOW.
• Hired a referral from a friend of a friend for a favour.
• Did not like any candidate that applied so hired the best one of the bunch.
• Bad culture fit – the person did not like your work environment
• You oversold the role.
• Did not check references.
• The person did not have the right competencies.
• You did not verify skills and/or education.
• You felt they could learn the skill in a short time frame.
• The person was not as motivated as you were.
• You did all the talking in the interview.

If you want a problem … hire one! No one wants to make a bad hiring decision; we do not make a
conscious decision to do this. The lack of planning and preparation generally is what leads to the bad
hiring decision.

So as you move along in growing your company or replacing roles for people that have moved on make
sure you are prepared to make a good hiring decision. The cost of the wrong one can kill a company.
Hidden costs (time, training, loss of productivity, frustrated employees carrying extra workload, loss of
customers, advertising and more).

Here are a few good tips that will help!

• Make sure you know what the role is you are hiring for.
• Create a good position description.
• Know how their performance is going to measured.
• Schedule the time to pre-screen candidates
• Outsource your hiring may be the right option for you.
• Interview the ones that have the skills and characteristics you require now.
• Use behavioural interviewing techniques – create conversation.
• Listen attentively to the interview.
• Complete the reference checks – qualify what the candidate said in the interview.

Happy hiring friends……planning works. We have some FREE Downloads in our resource section that can
help you out!
People work for people, not companies; enjoy building your team for success