I’ve written about this topic before, in an interview with Susie Hall, the president of Vitamin T, a self-described “talent agency for digital creatives and the design-minded people who love them” with a local chapter. he calls bad hires “zombies,” and if you’ve ever dug up some graves unexpectedly, you know it can be awful expensive.
Well, Monster’s blog has a great post this week further breaking down these costs beyond just shovels and plots of land. These costs aren’t always monetary -- they can come in the form of a bad hire tainting the waters:
Consider the morale to your existing team; they may well have been covering the workload until a new recruit was in situ. Delighted that you had finally appointed someone where they could relinquish the work, they are now devastated at the fact that this hasn’t worked out and they will be required to pick it all up again!
But what’s the alternative? You can keep someone who’s wrong for you on until it starts to get truly, truly negative.
So, in short: If someone’s not a good fit, do yourself a favor and just let them go earlier rather than later. It might seem like common knowledge, but you can’t assume anything these days.
David Wolinsky is a freelance writer and a lifelong Chicagoan. In addition to currently serving as an interviewer-writer for Adult Swim, he's also a comedy-writing instructor for Second City. He was the Chicago city editor for The Onion A.V. Club where he provided in-depth daily coverage of this city's bustling arts/entertainment scene for half a decade. When not playing video games for work he's thinking of dashing out to Chicago Diner, Pizano's, or Yummy Yummy. His first career aspirations were to be a game-show host.
