Why Most Managers Fail at Hiring—And the Real Cost When You Get It Wrong

It's tempting to think of a single hiring mistake as just a setback: one lost salary, maybe a bit of annoyance, but nothing that can't be fixed with a new search. In reality, the consequences ripple far beyond. Studies and field experience show that a bad hire can cost up to fifteen times their salary when you account for lost productivity, extra supervision, missed opportunities, and damaged morale.

Managers often underestimate these effects because the losses are spread across time and team members. Every crisis triggered by a poor hire, every moment spent cleaning up their mistakes, or every customer lost because of a bad interaction adds quietly to a mounting total. Transparency—including specific cost calculations—wakes organizations up to the stakes. Once you realize what’s on the line, prioritizing rigorous hiring becomes non-negotiable.

It’s a plain truth of organizational life: getting hiring consistently wrong inflicts long-term pain and holds everyone back. But you can aim for much higher success when you approach hiring as an accountable process, with measurable goals, rather than a random roll of the dice.

Pick one mistake—maybe a hire who didn’t work out, or a role you struggled to fill—and tally up everything it cost. Track not just money, but time, energy, and lost opportunities. Share this with colleagues or leadership, not as blame, but as motivation to invest in better systems. Set a bold metric for improvement, like 'build and retain a team of 90% A Players,' and make it a stated goal for the organization or team. Remember: the real cost is always higher than you expect, but so are the gains from getting it right.