The symptoms of and consequences to selection errors in recruitment decisions

​Having an inadequate recruitment and selection system can cost your company money in more ways than one. Businesses rely on their employees to be successful, so hiring the right people is essential for achieving overall goals. There are numerous repercussions of ineffective real estate recruitment and selection. More than just losing profit from lack of productivity, having the wrong people in your employ negatively affects many aspects of daily business operations.

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Revenue

A huge percentage of the position’s annual salary is often used for staff replacements. These costs may include job posting fees, on-site or off-site training expenses, and more. If you hire a person you didn’t realize was unsuited for a salesperson or account manager job, then the company may suffer great losses for sales not made or clients lost. This is especially dangerous for small companies and start-up businesses. Hiring the wrong person could be the most significant thing that brings you down.

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Turnover

When you hire the wrong person for a position, it typically results in having to do the whole process over to quickly refill the new vacancy. This results in wasted time, money, and energy during the downtime, as well as additional recruiting and training expenses. Having an open position hurts the company in many ways: loss of productivity, frustration about repeated training, and inability to effectively progress with business initiatives.

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Morale

A wrong hire resulting from an ineffective recruitment and selection process can also hurt the teamwork and productivity of good employees. This is less likely to happen for upper management employees, but lower-level workers may have to take up that person’s slack and they may feel overworked, frustrated, and underappreciated. Also, bad hires often instigate negative attitudes in the workplace. Additionally, since bad hires affect morale, good employees may leave the company, creating an even greater turnover problem.

Therefore, hiring the wrong person for the job can have serious consequences - not only can it compromise the morale of the rest of your team and affect the engagement of those employees, but may increase levels of absenteeism, impact on customer service, reduce productivity and ultimately affect your profitability.

The impact of a poor hire…

The cost

When employees are in the wrong position, they are more likely to leave the organisation and you need to spend your time re-filling the role.  This may mean you have to go through the hiring process a second or even third time and spend time re-training new employees.  The impact on customer service may even lead to a decrease in business earnings or revenue.

Health impacts

When an employee feels trapped in their job, or that the job is not the right fit for them, they may end up working longer hours to do everything possible to succeed.  Their personal lives can be affected, for example, they spend less time with family and friends, and their stress levels escalate.

Job burnout may also occur, which is where you feel physically, mentally and/or emotionally exhausted from work.  Your employee may doubt the value of their work and their own competency in getting the job done.

Impact on other employees

Disengaged employees can also undermine their co-workers’ success, decreasing productivity and morale in the organisation.  And, as disengaged employees typically take more sick days per year than their engaged colleagues, the financial impact of disengagement is clear.

Why does it happen?

On the one hand, some people may pursue jobs that don’t match their behavioural competencies and on the other, employers do not recognise when their candidate is not the best fit for the position.

An example of this is an individual who excels at mathematics thinking that a career in finance is the right job for them.  However, this person may be naturally more suited to a people--focused role. Similarly, a person may have the right traits for a management role (eg. the ability to influence others and get things done), but not have the skills and experience (or the desire to attain them) that will enable them to be successful in the long term.

In both these examples, the end result may be the same…the employees may show promise and enthusiasm at first, working extra hours to do what is necessary to get the job done, but then find it difficult to maintain that momentum if they are not matched for the job.

Breaking the cycle...

As the saying goes…you cannot expect different results if you are doing the same thing over and over again.  If your recruitment strategies are not working well for you, then it’s time to consider a new approach.

Recruiting for a better fit

Traditional recruitment strategies have their place and assessing skills and experience will remain important for some roles.  

However, understanding a candidate’s ability and personal qualities has shown to be a better indicator of an employee’s performance more often than not, as these candidates are likely to be retained for a longer period.  Even the most talented and hard-working employee will find it difficult to succeed in a position that doesn’t match his or her skills, abilities and interests.  Everyone has their own particular strengths and aptitudes, and will succeed best in positions that mesh well with those characteristics.

What are the common errors that can happen in the selection process?

What is the implication of the wrong decision in the selection process?

What are the possible consequences of using poor or outdated recruitment and selection processes?

What are the factors affecting recruitment and selection?