​Hiring new employees can have a significant impact to your business. You're probably already aware there are costs associated with hiring employees.

These may include recruiting expenses, time and resources, and of course, the salaries of new employees as well as the current employees whose time is used to train new employees. However, as an owner you decided those costs are worth it because the business needs the help, either because it is growing or you need to backfill key positions.

Once you've determined the need for the new employee outweighs the costs, hiring the best person possible for the job and company will help maximize the benefits of hiring someone new and minimize additional costs. It seems like a no brainer, but it's not uncommon for businesses to hire employees that aren't right for the position or company. Hiring may not be a priority or owners may think that a minimally qualified person is good enough. Let's look at a few stats that really tell the story of why finding the right person matters:

Mis-Hire Costs

A mis-hire (hiring the wrong person for the job) costs a business 6 x the salary for entry level person, according to smarttopgrading.com studies. That number goes up to 15 x the salary for managers and 27 x the salary for executives. That's a staggering statistic. But when you think of the hard hiring costs, lower productivity, missed business opportunities, effects on customer service, and effects on morale of other employees, it's not hard to see how the numbers get up there. Furthermore, the most likely outcome of a mis-hire is turnover. And then the costs repeat with the next mis-hire. The Harvard Business Review estimates up to 80% of turnover is due to bad hiring decisions.

"A" Player Impact

Finding the right person can make a huge impact on your business. From experience, we know having a great player on a team makes a big difference. How big? Some leading companies went about answering that. Here's what they found:

"A top 1 percent performer produces:

  • 10 times higher value than average — GE, Yahoo, and the U of Indiana study by O'Boyle and Aguinis
  • 25 times higher value than average — Apple
  • 28 times higher value than average — Bradford Smart at Top Grading
  • 300 times higher value than average — Google"

Excerpt from: Calculating the Tremendous Dollar Value of a Top-performing or Innovative Employee by Dr. John Sullivan.
Given those numbers, every company should be looking for top talent.

The Candidate Experience Matters

It's hard enough to find top talent. You don't want to make it even harder by shooting yourself in the foot. A candidate that has a bad experience during the interview process is doing just that. Candidates are turned off by a bad experience, which could include poor communication in the process, lack of the enthusiasm by the recruiter, never hearing back, interviews that start late, etc.

The impact goes beyond potentially losing a good candidate. You could also lose customers. In CareerBuilder survey, 32% of candidates said they would no longer buy products from a company they applied to but received no response. CareerBuilder also found 78% said they would tell their friends and family about a bad experience and 25% would put up a post about it on social media. Hiring great people starts with having a great candidate experience.

Conclusion

Hiring top talent can bring significant benefits to your business just as hiring the wrong person can bring significant costs. Providing candidates with a great hiring experience can not only help give you an advantage against competition for top talent, but prevent negative repercussions that come from a candidate that has a bad experience. Simple things make a big difference:

  • Communicating during each step of the process
  • Enthusiasm of the interviewers
  • Consistency of information about the job and company from person to person
  • Being on time for interviews
  • Moving through the hiring process quickly

Excelerator Consulting helps people and business grow. We offer unique packages that are affordable and right sized for businesses of any size. Contact us to find out more about how we can help you.