In a 200-person company, a bad hire is an inconvenience. In a 20-person company, a bad hire is a quarter of a department.
Owners tend to calculate the cost as “three months’ salary, wasted.” That’s the smallest line on the invoice.
What it actually costs
- Your time. Interviewing, onboarding, then propping up someone who isn’t landing. That’s often 40–60 hours of the owner’s attention — the most expensive hours in the business.
- The team’s patience. Good people notice when someone isn’t pulling their weight, and they notice how long you let it run. That’s a retention problem disguised as a hiring problem.
- The work itself. Missed deadlines, unhappy clients, rework someone else absorbs quietly.
- The restart. Eventually you’re back at square one, advertising the same role, six months later than you planned and with less budget than you had.
Three things that prevent most of them
Write the role down before you advertise it
Not a job spec copied off a job board. What does this person actually need to get done in the first 90 days, and how will you both know if it happened? Most bad hires are people who were never told what winning looked like.
Interview for the job, not for the chat
Likeable people interview well. Ask for specifics: a time they did this exact thing, what happened, what they’d do differently. Vague answers to specific questions are the most reliable signal there is.
Use probation properly
Probation is a working tool, not a formality. Check in at 30, 60 and 90 days, say the awkward thing early, write it down. Nine times out of ten this either fixes the problem outright, or tells you honestly that the fit is wrong — early, while it is still easy for everyone.
None of this requires an HR department. It requires about two hours of thinking before you place the advert.