Can Settling for Mediocre Talent Hurt a Business?

Every company wants to hire the best people. Whether it’s a Fortune 500 business adding an executive to their leadership team or a CPG company seeking out C-level talent, businesses can’t succeed without reliable, trustworthy, competent, personable employees. For many companies, however, there’s an idea that anyone is better than no one.

That’s particularly true when a position has been unfilled for a while and/or there’s pressure to fill it. There’s a false idea that there’s not that much top-tier talent out there and that the best of a less-than-ideal field of candidates should be sufficient. Unfortunately, that is not a healthy position for any business to take, especially when hiring for executive, management, and C-level positions.

The Hiring Investment

Ignoring, for now, the fact that top talent can (and virtually inevitably will) yield success and increased profit for a company, there are the up-front costs of hiring a mediocre candidate. The hiring process is not cheap, in a number of ways. Even the most bare-bones hiring process requires, at the very least, a substantial number of hours from a number of employees. And any investment less involved than that is pretty much guaranteed to yield mediocre results.

And many of those doing the hiring for their company are under the impression that all available candidates are open to new opportunities. The Human Resource team may reach out and try to source on their own. They also may get some “qualified” responses to their advertisement. They often believe they can skirt the recruitment fee by handling hiring in-house rather than contracting with a recruiting firm for their search. Among the candidates that apply are a number who seem like a great fit and they make an offer.

When professional data science recruiters consider the in-house hires made by companies in the CPG, insurance, and retail industries, to name a few, of poorly-vetted candidates from industry newsletters or LinkedIn, they are flabbergasted. One Practice Leader from a leading executive recruiting firm often asked hiring managers: “Do you know what you don’t know?”The fact is, professional, competent executive, C-level recruiting firms simply have the experience, expertise, and industry know-how an internal HR team or hiring manager doesn’t. And the cost of a bad hire far exceeds what the placement fee would have been. Really consider that. Would you rather pay a recruiting fee for a successful ecommerce recruitment that yielded a terrific placement, or have a mediocre person in a position that will cost your company loss of revenue?

Ensuring Top Talent

So, how can you guarantee that you hire top-tier talent? If there’s anything like a magic bullet for talent, especially regarding executive and C-level hiring, it’s contracting with an experienced recruiting firm. After all, chances are that the dynamic, reliable, STAR talent you need for your business isn’t going to be responding to a job listing. Fortunately, the best recruiters at the top recruiting firms are well aware of this, have the lay of the land when they’ve specialized in your industry, and know how to attract and bring in the best executive talent to move things forward. Contracting with a recruiting firm that specializes in your industry and knows your business is one of the best investments you can make.