The Cost of Hiring Too Fast
September 10, 2026
By Keri Ohlrich, PhD
When you’re under pressure to fill a spot on your team, it can seem unreasonable to not take the first “okay” hire off the street. You and your team need help, but relief is often just that: fast and temporary. Learning to slow down, ask the right questions, and trust your instincts can save you more than money. It can save you from doing all this over again in six months.
I remember working as the HR Business Partner for a group led by an incredibly talented and incredibly fast-moving leader. They expected a lot from themselves and from their team. They believed in moving quickly, making decisions and keeping momentum. When an employee left, they immediately felt the pressure of having an open position. The work didn’t slow down just because someone resigned. Deadlines still had to be met. Clients still needed support. The rest of the team was stretched thin.
After several interviews, the manager found a candidate who seemed “good enough.” Even as we discussed the candidate, the manager admitted they had reservations. They weren’t completely convinced this person could perform at the level the rest of the team expected. But the desire to have a full team was simply too strong. They made the hire anyway.
Unfortunately, those concerns proved to be accurate. The new employee struggled to keep pace with the rest of the team, and over time, performance issues created additional work for the manager and frustration among team members. High performers began compensating for missed deadlines and inconsistent work, which created tension and resentment. Eventually, the employee resigned, and the manager found themselves back where they had started, except this time they had spent months onboarding, coaching and managing poor performance before reopening the search.
That experience has stayed with me throughout my career because I’ve seen versions of it play out time and time again. Hiring managers rarely make these decisions because they don’t care about quality. They make them because they’re under pressure. They need help. They need relief. They need someone in the seat. And that’s what makes recruiting so difficult.
The Pressure Is Real
The tension between hiring quickly and hiring well is one of the hardest balancing acts leaders face. Every day a position remains vacant, it places additional strain on the manager, the team and often the organization’s clients. It is completely understandable why managers want to make decisions as soon as possible.
After more than twenty years in HR, I’ve learned that the pain of an open position is usually temporary. The pain of the wrong hire can last much longer. When organizations are under pressure, it’s easy to focus almost exclusively on technical qualifications:
- Does this person have the right accounting experience?
- Have they worked with similar clients?
- Can they step into the role quickly?
Those questions absolutely matter, but they aren’t the only questions that matter.
Look Beyond the Resume
The questions that often predict long-term success are different, because they go beyond those technical qualifications:
- How does this person respond to feedback?
- How do they handle competing priorities?
- What motivates them?
- How do they approach accountability?
- Will they contribute positively to the team during stressful periods?
- Are they someone others will trust and enjoy working alongside?
These conversations begin to uncover whether someone will thrive within your organization’s environment rather than if they can simply perform the technical aspects of the position.
The term “culture fit” has become more nuanced over the past several years, and for good reason. Organizations should never hire people simply because they are similar to everyone already on the team. Strong organizations benefit from different perspectives, diverse experiences and healthy debate. Instead of looking for people who “fit in,” I encourage leaders to think about whether a candidate will contribute to the culture they are intentionally trying to build.
The best hires are people whose behaviors align with the organization’s values. They collaborate. They take ownership. They communicate openly. They support their teammates. They care about delivering exceptional service to clients. Those qualities strengthen a culture regardless of someone’s background or personality.
Don’t Ignore Your Gut Instinct
One of the biggest mistakes organizations make is allowing urgency to override judgment. I’ve had hiring managers tell me, “I know they aren’t exactly what we’re looking for, but we need someone.” I understand that feeling. I really do. But hope is not a hiring strategy.
If you already have significant concerns before extending an offer, those concerns rarely disappear after someone joins the organization. More often, they become amplified once the individual begins working under the daily demands of the role. That doesn’t mean organizations should search endlessly for a perfect candidate. Perfect candidates don’t exist.
It does mean leaders should be intentional enough to distinguish between a candidate who may need development and a candidate whose work style, behaviors or capabilities raise genuine concerns. One question I often encourage hiring managers to ask themselves is surprisingly simple: “If this position weren’t currently vacant, would I still be excited to hire this person?” When the urgency of filling the role is removed, the answer often becomes much clearer.
Consider the Hidden Costs
Most organizations know the cost of recruiting. They can calculate advertising expenses, recruiter fees, onboarding costs and salary. The harder costs to measure are often the ones that have the greatest impact:
- Decreased team morale
- Time spent coaching and managing performance
- Lost productivity
- Frustrated clients
- Burnout among high performers
- Hiring the same position twice
While those costs are difficult to capture on a spreadsheet, they are very real. Taking additional time during the hiring process doesn’t necessarily mean adding multiple rounds of interviews or creating unnecessary delays. Sometimes it simply means slowing down long enough to ask better questions, involving the right interviewers, verifying concerns or deciding that waiting a few more weeks is a better investment than making the wrong decision today.
The Best Hiring Decisions Require Patience
As HR professionals, we often remind leaders that recruiting isn’t just about filling positions. It’s about building teams that will succeed together over the long term. The manager I worked with years ago learned that lesson firsthand. They later told me that the temporary relief they felt after filling the position wasn’t worth the months of additional work that followed. From that point forward, they became much more disciplined during the hiring process. They still moved quickly, but they no longer ignored their instincts simply because the position was vacant.
That lesson stayed with me as well.
A position can survive being open a little longer. A high-performing team shouldn’t have to survive the wrong hire.