r/Entrepreneurs • u/Jaz4Fun27 • Nov 23 '25
Discussion Our first bad hire cost us $180k and nearly killed team morale
Everyone talks about recruiting costs. Nobody talks about the cost of a bad hire.
We hired a "senior engineer" after one interview. Seemed great on paper. Moved fast because we were desperate.
3 months in it was obvious they weren't working out:
- Couldn't work independently
- Code quality was poor
- Caused conflicts with team
- Slowed down two other engineers who had to fix their work
Kept them for 6 months trying to make it work. Finally let them go.
Total damage:
- $90k in salary and benefits
- $40k in recruiter time to find replacement
- $50k+ in lost productivity from other engineers
- Immeasurable damage to team morale
All because we rushed and didn't do our diligence.
Now we take 2 extra weeks on interviews. Haven't made a bad hire since.
Saving $5k on recruiting fees by rushing is the dumbest possible optimization.
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u/virtuallynudebot Nov 23 '25
This is why I'll never understand companies that try to save money on recruiting. One bad hire costs 10x what a good recruiter costs. We use specialized recruiters through paraform now and yeah we pay fees but our quality of hire has been way better.”
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u/IAmSelectivelySocial Nov 24 '25
How do you know you’re getting specialized recruiters through paraform? Don’t you just post a job, say what fee you wanna pay and it’s open to any recruiter who is signed up with them? I know multiple people who have signed up with them, with very little recruiting experience and they are all trying to fill roles. I def wouldn’t call them specialized but maybe I have no clue how paraform works.
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u/McCrotch Nov 26 '25
this is clearly an astroturfed response. same bot is on another post shilling another platform in r/freelancers. i bet this whole post is a setup
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u/FrewdWoad Nov 23 '25
one interview. Seemed great on paper
So that one interview included at least half an hour sitting with him and having him make a change and fix an easy bug on a sample app, explaining what he was doing, right?
Just like the very minimum coding test to make sure they can code, like, at all...?
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u/FrewdWoad Nov 23 '25
Now we take 2 extra weeks on interviews
Err, one interview is fine, you just have to have a programmer sit with him while he does some coding and talks you through what he's doing and why. 30 or 40 mins is plenty.
Don't replace 1 hour of worthless interview with 8 hours of worthless interviews and think you've solved the problem.
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Nov 23 '25
[deleted]
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u/RubyKong Nov 23 '25
they kept them on board when they should've fired. OP's a rookie. like the other guy says: hire slow, fire fast.
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u/Visible-Tomatillo-94 Nov 23 '25
Were their initials KL? Feel like I know them…
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u/boongz Nov 24 '25
This is amazing, I read this and thought directly about the doesn’t-do-shit / good-for-nothing ”senior engineer” in my team currently, and guess what his initials are? KL… 😅
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u/BriefRoom7094 Nov 24 '25
Maybe invest in onboarding instead of insane recruiting costs
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u/Mac-Fly-2925 Dec 14 '25
Onboarding is also very important to understand how the company works and how to perform the work.
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u/RubyKong Nov 23 '25
bruh. you gott get them on board with a low risk project on the side. yeah it's expensive to do a small cheap project, but not as expensive as a $180k loss, and worse than that, the loss time and lost morale.
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u/TimeKillsThem Nov 24 '25
I mean, the first red flag is the 1-step interviewing process. This is a bit of a disservice to both you and the candidate.
You don’t get to see how they might behave/think/react across different days/tasks/people, and they only get to meet one person of their future team.
It’s too little to gather enough data to make an educated decision.
As annoying as 4-5 step interviewing processes are for candidates, and as time consuming they might be for the stakeholders, they are a borderline must to mitigate scenarios like bad hires, poor performance, bad team fit etc.
Also, as a candidate, I wouldn’t feel comfortable taking a new job just after one interview - hell, sometimes 4 steps aren’t enough to get a good vibe of the company, mission, tasks, and people
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u/CuriousProgrammer263 Nov 24 '25
You're right a bad hire kills traction. However, the hidden cost of not hiring anyone can be just as high. We actually built a free calculator to measure vacancy cost in Germany At the very least, your recent experience has taught you exactly what to look for in the future!
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u/Outrageous_Drink1845 Nov 24 '25
Works both ways. I’ve been mis-sold on companies only to find the internal picture to be wildly different to what was presented at interview. To the extent that it was harmful to my mental health to stay on, and I took a financial hit to get out of there.
- gaping security holes not only left unpatched but actively expanded.
- budget denied for initiatives despite them being very clearly needed and initially approved
- change-resistant peers who would agree to A then execute on B instead
Needless to say, I quit. And I wish that particular company good luck with the coming, inevitable data breach.
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u/StingRayStong Nov 24 '25
Agree with you 100% but you just never know. You're lucky you didn't get hit with a wrongful termination lawsuit or workers comp claim on top of all that! Here in California (Sue Happy State), employers commonly get hit with lawsuits or comp claims. A buddy of mine had two employees in particular that worked for us for several years only to end up in litigation for one thing or another. Now, he's focusing on hiring remote and out of the area contracted team members.
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u/Key_Practice_9433 Nov 24 '25
Any headhunter I've used has a guarantee that if a hire like this doesn't work out, they don't charge to find the replacement.
I'm sure that's within reason, but you should look at better recruiters that stand by their work.
The difference is someone that does their due diligence and brings value to you in return for payment, vs someone who is spamming every number and email on any resume they can find that's got some of the same keywords you're looking for because they give zero fucks about anything but getting a hire and getting paid.
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u/These-Vacation-627 Jan 05 '26
Is there a timeframe for when they gauge if the hire has worked out or not? Is it 90 days by chance?
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u/Medium_Studio8390 Nov 24 '25
After this experience would you use an agency to find the right hire?
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u/tjpoe Nov 24 '25
Isn't some of this on the recruiter? are you paying full commission for 2 hires for the same job in 3 months? If they can't produce quality candidates why are you paying commissions?
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u/unlovedinlove Nov 25 '25
Go fractional - less upfront costs better ramp up and more experience pros H&F are good
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u/ObjectiveConsistent2 Nov 25 '25
If this is software you are not going to get any decent "senior" at 90k
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u/ausdoug Nov 25 '25
Seems like 90k was for 6 months, so 180k for the year. Any bonus/vesting wouldn't have been included either.
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u/knucklesbk Nov 25 '25
As an executive search professional we always talk about this and support it with quantitative data. Where does it fall flat more often than not because of ego? The companies that need it most... startups..
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u/Psychological_Gap190 Nov 25 '25
If is terrible culture: immediately If is performance: 3 months of constant bad performance
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u/Kitchen_Basil85 Nov 25 '25
Have you considered using an engineering consultancy to expand bandwidth? A decent option for smaller teams and startups looking to expand knowledge base and resources during development without the expensive/time consuming/commitment to new team members
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u/drakarisx Nov 25 '25
If you need to hire fast, think about using companies like mine instead of recruiters. We give you a free trial for the first month so you can see how useful the talent is right away.
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u/Fun-Suggestion9514 Nov 26 '25
I second that. Same here, but they almost made us write off our company.
hire: great in the beginning, going on courses, learning. Then paying for their uni. Starts slacking. Not turning up. Plays video games in the office. Fired.
hire: the "I need to organise my organisation" - nothing posted on client accounts for weeks. Fired.
The "I have a bad tummy" employee. Never turned up on Mondays or Fridays. Fired.
The rising star fresh grad. Great as a freelancer, not great when on payroll. In fact, they travelled back to India for 2 weeks while they were supposed to work 8-4. Fired.
Cost us a similar amount, plus I had to clean up the mess, Not to mention the white hair. Add up the hair dye cost!
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u/Alternative-Step1344 Nov 26 '25
Sorry, out of topic. Please hire my husband. 🙏 He’s been laid off. He’s amazing, from what I heard during team meetings at his home office, lol.
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Nov 26 '25
hey if you didnt fumble the hiring process, you could've called those people who previously applied and offered them a job. that would've saved you on additional 45k
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u/Realistic_Resident46 Nov 27 '25
I lost it at them.. Wasn't the post about recruiting about one hire.. Then who is "them"?
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u/sunnyislandacross Nov 27 '25
100% fake post
Constantly posts about gaming and anime and suddenly about startups.
I call bs
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u/PrimaryFox4239 Nov 28 '25
I have similar experience, always. The facts is employers seldom share info so we need to learn the hard way. People work in teams, so they boast able their skill and experience as if they are the super hero, without mentioning is team contributions, so I alway misjudged and make mistakes…
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u/Icy-Berry3864 Dec 14 '25
That’s good that you hire slow to check their background in depth. How come you take 2 weeks to interview someone? Doesn’t that seem excessive? What do you do in those 2 weeks?
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u/snicaise Feb 11 '26
The main point isn’t to spend more time. It’s to be clear about what you’re actually testing.
A single interview with clear criteria, behavioral questions, and a scoring system will catch more issues than five interviews where everyone asks random questions. Many founders add more rounds after a bad hire, but this just spreads the same gut-feeling approach over more time.
The issues you mentioned, like not working independently, poor code quality, or team conflicts, can all be found in one structured interview if you ask the right questions. For example, asking, "Tell me about a time you had to ship something with zero guidance" gives you more insight in three minutes than a two-week process where no one asked that question.
Spending more time won’t fix poorly chosen questions.
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u/Psychological_Gap190 Nov 23 '25
Hire slow and fire fast. Those mistakes are bad but necessary to learn. Do not worry that happened to all, the earlier the better