Do-It-Yourself Hiring

Do-it-yourself hiring is like fixing a plumbing problem.   Your faucet springs a leak and you think to yourself, “I’ll save a little money and fix this myself.  No need to call a plumber.”  So, you get a wrench and tighten something down under.  Darn, it’s still leaking.   You then go to the hardware store and buy some piping and fittings to fix the problem.  Darn, its still leaking.  In the end, you finally call a licensed plumber to correct the problem.   Now, in addition to paying the plumber, you have incurred out of pocket costs for parts and several hours of your time.  And, incurred additional downtime on the usage of the faucet.

In do-it-yourself hiring, the picture looks like this.  Your sales rep quits unexpectedly.  You ask your friends and colleagues for referrals.  Maybe post a hastily written ad on a job board.  A couple weeks later, you review a few resumes.  A couple more weeks go by and you finally call one of the candidates.  You interview them once and decide you like him.  Plus, your friend said he was a great guy.   You make an offer and he joins your team.  Two months later, you find that he did not understand the expectations of the job and he quits.  You are glad because if he didn’t quit, you would have had to fire him.  You spent hours and hours in training him, but now you have to start all over again.

The results of this do-it-yourself hiring are: 1) longer time to fill the position  2) limited candidate pool 3) poor quality candidates that don’t match requirements of job 4) lost opportunity cost.

The cost of hire includes your time, the job posting fee, the candidates salary, lost productivty costs, and lost opportunity costs.  So, how much did it really cost you?

Assuming most small businesses do not have an HR department to manage their hiring process, consider hiring a outside professional to help you hire right the first time.  At a minimum, have a professional interviewer conduct a phone interview and utilizee sales assessment tools.