Coming Back From a Bad Hire

So, you’ve hired a couple of employees that have turned out to be complete failures. Now, since you’ve tasted failure, you may be afraid to hire anyone else, even when you need them. Every mistake can build your business, so you shouldn’t be viewing bad hires as anything other than a learning experience. Here are some tips to help make your next hire more successful.

Where Did Your New Talent Come From?

Consider carefully where your new hire came from. How do you recruit new people to work for you? Some people choose to find talent through others that are already on their team, since team members are almost always excellent judges of who could handle the work they do and who could not. It takes some extra time and some trial and error, but over time, this works. So how do you do it? Another strategy is to check out the background of your successful employees. How much education do they have and where did they get it? Where did they work before they came to you? Figure out what you think is influencing their spectacular work.

Where are Your Priorities When Looking for a New Hire?

Like any employer, you have quite the laundry list of qualifications you look for in a potential employee. But have you really taken the time to prioritize your list of necessary skills? It’s unlikely that every skill is equally important as the next. Not every qualification is going to have the same value as others on your list. Maybe “friendliness” is more important to you than “the ability to lift 50-pound boxes.”

When you start getting applications, rank the candidate’s qualifications in order from most important to least important. How many of the “must haves” are they missing? How many of the “don’t need to haves” do they have?

Do You Have the Proper Training Ready?

Sometimes a good hire can go sour simply because you didn’t have the proper training and orientation policies in place. It happens; not every business owner can be an expert at everything, and proper orientation can be difficult at best. Make sure you’re doing all you can do to bring a new employee into the company with open arms by answering all their questions and making sure they know everything they need to know upfront.

Remember, every bad hire is a learning experience. Don’t be afraid to change your hiring process until you discover the one that brings the best talent aboard. Remember that your priorities, where your new talent comes from, and proper training for a new employee can make a huge difference in the quality of employee that you wind up hiring.