Picking the wrong person costs your firm in dollars and relationships. These examples typify the kind of costly employee selection mistakes we've seen time and again, yet could have been easily avoidable with Profiles...to Partners.
The $220,000 Project Manager
Not salary. That’s what he cost the firm in revenue, rework and concessions.
Before coming to us, a client of ours hired a project manager for several high profile projects. This project manager mismanaged projects, alienated co-workers and vendors and angered customers. The employee was terminated but the damage was done.
Our client estimated the cost in lost revenue, rework and concessions to customers was $220,000. Add in the costs of hiring, the employee’s salary, benefit and training, lost productivity of other employees, executive time spent solving the problem and impact on customers, and the total cost came to at least $550,000.
The root cause of this hiring mistake? According to our client, the cause could be attributed to inferior, incomplete information about the person during the hiring process.
Business Development Manager bolts after just nine months.
Consequently, very little business was developed. Could this have been avoided?
A well-known search firm placed a business development manager with a company. The goal was crystal clear: generate at least $500,000 in new gross revenue.
Instead, the manager quit after nine months on the job and generated only $90,000 in revenue. The loss column was staggering.
$45,000 in base salary
$9,000 in commissions
$2,125 in sales support personnel
$55,000 spent on marketing and sales materials
$18,000 in recruiting expenses
That's not even counting the opportunity lost, which the company estimated at $300,000 in lost revenue with no sales leads in the pipeline.
The company came to us. As our client, we customized our Profiles...to Partners Candidate Match eValuation program to include company/position specific questionnaires, job simulation exercises, and a detailed psychometric assessment. These tools also helped determine the candidate's motivation and commitment level, giving our client a much greater degree of certainty regarding the candidate's intentions.
A startup hires an Executive Assistant. Ultimately, they had to let her go.
Along with thousands of dollars in salary, benefits, training and recruiting costs.
Two years before we met this client, they were a busy startup in need of help. They turned to a staffing company who sent over an executive assistant. Things were great at first. The new hire was efficient and jumped right in. She reorganized the files, set up new tracking and recordkeeping procedures and helped create an employee manual, among other things.
However, senior managers began to complain about her attitude. Other employees started to avoid her. Even outside parties complained about their treatment. The company brought the matter to her attention and sent her to a training class, among other corrective strategies.
Ultimately, our client had to let the executive assistant go. That one hiring mistake cost the company at least three times her salary. Was it avoidable? Yes, with our Profiles...to Partners Candidate Match eValuationPrograms that go well beyond any screening process offered by a traditional staffing company.
