Study: 75% of employers have made a bad hire in the past 12 months

November 20, 2016

CareerBuilder survey, 75% of employers said they have hired the wrong person for a position in the last twelve months. Of those who had a bad hire affect their business, the average cost of the bad hire was $17,000. That’s a significant sum for most small businesses and emphasizes why it’s so important to run comprehensive pre-employment background checks. Worryingly, the report suggests that only 72% of employers are currently running such checks. This is down from previous studies, which have reported the number to be as high as 90%. Of the 72% in this study that reported running background checks, here’s how their background checks break down:

  • Criminal background check: 82 percent
  • Employment check: 62 percent
  • Identity check: 60 percent
  • Education check: 50 percent
  • Drug test: 44 percent
  • Licensing check: 38 percent
  • Credit check: 29 percent
The study also indicated that 20% of employers continue to perform background checks on employees post-hire – a best practice we would strongly advise employers to consider. Study respondants shared that the primary ways a bad hire affected their business included:
  • Lower productivity: 36 percent
  • Lower quality of work: 33 percent
  • Negatively affected employee morale: 31 percent
  • Lost time to recruit and train another worker: 30 percent
  • Cost to recruit and train another worker: 30 percent
  • Employee’s managers or coworkers had to spend excessive time assisting bad hire: 29 percent
The survey was conducted online by Harris Poll on behalf of CareerBuilder from August 11 to September 7, 2016. It included a sample of 2,379 hiring managers and human resources professionals, ages 18 and over (employed full-time, not self-employed, non-government), coming across different industries and company sizes in the private sector in the USA.]]>

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