The Cost of a Bad Hire

Why Nonprofits Can't Afford to Get Recruitment Wrong

Nonprofit organisations often find themselves in a catch-22: senior staff are overworked and need help, but are so busy and overstretched that they can’t spare the time and energy to run the thorough recruitment process required to find new staff, who would alleviate some of their work pressure. For a recruitment process to run smoothly and result in success, following some clear steps and paying attention to detail along the way is vital. Busy, under-resourced nonprofit organisations often lack the dedicated expert HR administrative support enjoyed by government departments or the corporate sector.

This means that the somewhat onerous and often daunting responsibility of recruiting for a new staff member—from advertising to appointment—is often tasked to personnel who don’t have the time, expertise or capacity to drive the process with the focus it requires. Taking staff away from their core business to run the recruitment results in the loss of their effort towards serving the organisation’s mission and can lead to many wasted work hours at all levels of staff. A few bad hires can result in a massive loss of output for the organisation, particularly wrong executive hires.

A proper recruitment process requires team effort and dedication - many things need to go right

As experts in the field, with 75 years of combined nonprofit recruitment experience, the recruitment team at Action Appointments has identified these 9 steps making up a recruitment process that need dedicated time and attention to keep the process running smoothly.

1. The Brief – clarity in who is required for the vacancy

2. Advertising – spreading a wide net in appropriate places

3. Screening – understanding the brief and having a good sense of who is being sought

4. Shortlisting – having a sense of the fit, how to identify expertise, how to read a work history

5. Candidate communication – keeping shortlisted candidates engaged at all stages of the process

6. Interviews – well-structured process, must be in-depth

7. Candidate verification – needs to be vigorous and thorough, may even involve some detective abilities

8. Package negotiation – clear communication and both parties on the same page about salary and benefits

9. Onboarding – ensuring a smooth transition, helping the new hire understand the organisation’s culture, systems, and expectations from day one

   
   

   

   A rushed hire can result in a bad fit

If the above 9 steps are not given the attention and time they require, the hire can easily fail—either during the process, at the end of the process, or a few months into the hire. Organisations often fall short by not factoring in the real costs of a failed recruitment process.

Consequences of a bad hire include (and are not limited to):

• The wrong person receiving a precious salary, while not adding the value that the salary was budgeted for. For example, a fundraiser who cannot perform results in a loss of their salary as well as a loss of the potential they should have been bringing to the organisation (in this case, potential funding).

• The salary cost of the staff running the process (meaning taking their effort away from their core work and allocating it to the recruitment) is also wasted. This is even more serious when it comes to factoring in the cost of executive involvement in the process; often hours spent interviewing and reviewing are also wasted.

• Introducing a new staff member to a team and recognising that they are a wrong hire and are not going to work out can lead to destabilisation of the team and possible loss of commitment to the work, particularly when recruitment mistakes are made at a senior level. This can lead to loss of morale, high staff turnover, and reputational damage.

• A wrong hire at any level means loss of time, resources, and potential for an organisation. A wrong hire at an executive level can have very dire consequences for the successful continuation of the organisation. Many nonprofits have closed as a consequence of appointing the wrong director.

Action Appointments has identified these 9 critical steps and the ways to ensure that each step is followed faithfully to ensure a successful outcome and avoid making bad hires. We are hosting a free webinar on “The Cost of a Bad Hire” on Tuesday 8th May 2025 at 11am. If you are interested in finding out more about what a bad hire can cost an organisation and how to avoid making that mistake (as far as possible), then please sign up here:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeFTW17P1NFF4XxB8kPYTMS52r2ktP1uL9aUGfbVnYbCdoyWQ/viewform