Do Mistakes in Recruiting Create a Bad Reputation? Essay Example

Hiring the right employee is important for businesses for many reasons. When the wrong employee is hired, business lose valuable time, resources, money, and even customers. The purpose of this research is to examine the damages to an organization when they hire the wrong employee. The research is important for further investigation because it is beneficial for businesses to be aware of the negative consequences of hiring the wrong employee, and to offer guidance in how to hire the right candidates.

The literature review pooled information from six journals, four books, and two newspapers. These resources provided effective guidelines for hiring the right employees. Recruitment is a process and should not be rushed. Typically, hiring personnel require at least six weeks to find suitable candidate. Poor recruiting decisions can produce long-term negative effects, causing the business’s performance to suffer. In the 2013 book by Snell, Scott, Bohlander, and George, the authors state that the business’s overall profitability and revenues are positively correlated to the investment place in each new employee. Hiring incompetent employees can cause the business to lose customers and impair the progress of the company. Selecting and hiring employees that are capable of helping the organization achieve their mission is based on effective leadership. Businesses should only hire after careful consideration because this reduces tension among present employees about their job security. If the wrong person is hired, the morale of other employees could be negatively affected and lead to more bad hiring decisions. Hiring personnel must have support from upper management and experienced people must be in charge of recruiting potential candidates. Another idea that was presented in the literature was not hiring candidates based solely on their fit with the company culture. While personality is important, it is better to hire candidates who are competent, as opposed to merely popular. In the 2009 newspaper article by Brett Synder, hiring the wrong employee can create a bad reputation, and for some companies, this can cost them $180 million, such as the case with United Airlines damaging a popular musician’s guitar. In addition, a company with a poor reputation will have a difficult time in recruiting employees that would be efficient.

The sample size of the research will be at least five participants. These known participants will include two consultants, two hiring managers, and a graduate job seeker. There will be a group of PLC employees, who are a key informant group. However, the exact number of participants from PLC is unknown at this time. Participants were chosen for their experience in hiring and efficient practices in business operation. Other participants were chosen due to their role as employees and of a graduate student who will be looking for potential employers in a short amount of time.

Data for this experiment was collected by interviewing participants and researching six journals, four books, and two newspaper articles. These documents were electronically searched from a wide range of websites. They were then evaluated to determine their relevance to the topic. The only problem encountered was gathering the participants of the PLC employees for the interviewing process.

The root cause analysis (RCA) used in this research is the Pareto Analysis, because it has the ability to prioritize possible changes and identify the problems that will be resolved by making said changes. The Pareto Principle, or the “80-20 Rule,” is the idea that 20% of the causes generate 80% of the results. The following steps shall be considered and responded to accordingly:

• There two problems identified are the inability for a company to choose the right employee, and selecting hiring personnel with the right experience for the recruitment process.
• The root cause of each problem is due to the lack of empowerment and support from the business administration. The upper management either did not implement appropriate hiring protocols or they did not assign hiring personnel with enough experience.
• The problems must be scored and analyzed. Hiring personnel must have experience in the hiring process, or else the chances of hiring the wrong employee increase.
• Problems must be grouped together by their root cause. Both above problems were created by weak administrational guidance.
• Both problems are considered to receive an average score as resolving them takes one step which involves administrational engagement in the business’ operation.
• Action must be taken, giving priority for the problem-group with the highest score. Hiring personnel must be able to select the appropriate applicant for employment.

The research discovered three main factors in hiring employees. Hiring the wrong employee costs business time, resources, money, and potentially customers. In order to avoid this mistake, companies must select hiring personnel with adequate experience in the recruiting process. There are certain protocols available hiring personnel can use in selecting the right candidate. The research answer is “yes” to the question if recruiting mistakes damage a company’s reputation.

More research is needed to better understand the methods in preventing the hiring process of inefficient employees. Studies should be conducted with a larger sample size; a fault with this study was the limited amount of participants. For the purposes of this study, a qualitative research method was used in order to gain a better understanding of underlying issues associated with the hiring process. A qualitative research method was also selected because of the workability with a small sample size due to limited resources. Additional studies may use a different type of research such as quantitative, correlation or regression analysis, and meta-analysis. These research methods will explore the issue of hiring appropriate employees at a deeper level.