Who is Responsible for a Bad Hire?

The age-old question: Who's responsible for a bad hire? In this unfiltered episode, Join us, Brianna Rooney and Taylor Bradley, as we share our raw perspectives on the complexities of modern recruitment. From assessing candidate fit to navigating hiring manager expectations, we leave no stone unturned. 

So, what's your take on bad hires? Is it all on the recruiter, or is there more to the story? Jump into the debate with us in the comments below, and don't forget to subscribe for weekly episodes filled with real talk and actionable insights on all things recruitment. Let's chat! 

Creators & Guests

Host

Brianna Rooney

I am the CEO and Founder of TalentPerch, Techees Recruiting, The Millionaire Recruiter, and now Thriversity. My vision for the last 14 years has been to change the way the World views the Recruiting Industry. Even though I have two little kids, I remain firm on maintaining a work-life balance. I believe you can be as successful at work, as you are at home. You don’t have to choose. The choice is, to be present and rock everything you do!

Host

Taylor Bradley

Chief Strategy Officer, Talent Leader, Advisor, Podcast Co-host. I specialize in turning DIRT to GLITTER ✨

Producer

Kait Vickers

What is Talent Takeover Unfiltered?

Hosted by Brianna Rooney, The Millionaire Recruiter, and Taylor Bradley, The Humble Hustler. When it comes to working hard and keeping it real, we know our S.H.I.T. (self-care, happiness, inner peace, time). Two women who’ve made thriving in chaos and finding the meaning in the madness an art form, provide you an “under the hood” view of all things recruiting in hopes to bring respect and awareness in a relatable way to a long underrated industry that’s oversaturated with “experts”.

welcome to Talent takeover unfiltered when it comes to working hard and keeping it real we know our [ __ ] self-care happiness inner peace and time I'm Brianna Rooney and this is Taylor Bradley hey y'all and we have thrived in chaos and turn it into an art form so Taylor what are we doing here today we're here to give you a raw under the hood view of all things recruiting and finally give credit where credit is due to a long underrated industry that's full of quote unquote experts all right well then let's take this show to the road hey everyone welcome to Talent takeover on filter sorry had a I feel feel like I blacked out um so Taylor Bradley welcome um we're you know here comes another controversial episode which I love um but that's why we do what we do how you doing good how are you today Fantastical so the question is who is responsible for a bad hike you are damn it I knew you would say that just you doesn't matter what company doesn't matter where it's just no um yeah I think this is interesting because this is I've seen this come up um lately on you know LinkedIn there's been some discussions about it and I was just like this is really interesting because it obviously it differs depending upon the company right as far as what their approach is but who do you think's responsible for a bad hire know you have spirital thoughts on it yeah I I do um I I think everyone first and foremost right um so I'm looking at from a contingency lens okay I know I gotta get all propped up in my chair here um by the way you can watch this on millionaire recruiter YouTube I definitely suggest you do that some good nuggets here but um contingency so I guarantee a candidate for a certain period of time right and I try to get 30-day guarantee and I'll go as high as 90day guarantee for refund okay because I do not I do definitely anyone listening does contingency never give them a replacement for free you literally give them two people for the price of one so don't do that so I do a pro rated refund now my thought process is though I think there should be zero guarantee because I am not in charge of retention I am not in charge of the onboarding plan I am not in charge of how internally they treat people I am also not in charge of building out their interview process so from a contingency standpoint I feel like I am zero responsible um internally I think we could fight that internally as far as how responsible as a recruiter but I also think the recruiter is only as responsible as you've let them build so like if a company says to the recruiter hey you are fully in charge from start to finish of our entire interview process work with the hiring manager I think yeah you probably have you probably have some skin in that game right yeah you know um but there's so many different things that you can put into place and it's like look every single person that interviewed them is responsible yeah at the end of the day yeah I mean I think that if we're being realistic I think more of the blame does tend to get put on the recruiter and I'm speaking more from like an internal recruiter perspective um you have the agency lens I'll speak more from from the in-house lens but I think because it's like you're supposed to know the organization you're supposed to know the culture and you spend more time with a candidate that anybody else does you know in theory right they're supposed to be able and you know I've heard it be said before like that's your isn't that your entire job in recruiting is to know if somebody's going to be a good fit for our organization or not sure and like that's interesting that that was somebody and of course that was a nonta person's View and that wasn't said to me directly but it was said to somebody I know and I'm like that's interesting because that's how they view a recruiter's job like like if you're the CFO and you know the books are a mess and the finances are a mess like it's like well that's that's not going to be you know suie over an operations responsibility our fault you know for a bad like it's it was kind of like that's your job is to make sure we don't have bad hires and I probably would have agreed to that more um you know to a certain extent had I not just seen some things recently where I'm like no it's absolutely not it's not the recruit they a bad hire too like let's really Define what the [ __ ] that is right that that's what I was gonna I was going to ask you because I was saying culture and communication wise yes the recruiter shouldn't let certain people through we definitely have to be those Gatekeepers sometimes absolutely but but you know also obviously doing engineering it's like I'm not going to tell you whether or not a software engineer actually did what they said on the resume like that's that's for you to for you to do I can ask tons of questions but I'm not giving them a code challenge well and here's the other big thing that like I am not responsible for their job happiness and and role satisfaction once they get in the role I have no idea what kind of hiring manager XYZ um is as far as a actual day-to-day manager I work with them in a different capacity you know I think it's like our job is once we get the person hired that's our responsibility as the recruiters now that's why I get a little bit turned off cuz I'm like there's not like how can you say bad hire if they got to the point of being hired now we could be responsible for bad candidates you know I think that's more ship that you could put on us is bad candidates but a bad hire wasn't made in a vacuum there's a lot involved there's usually tests involved assessments involved there's usually a lot of different steps where it's like somebody got through all of these different steps to get hired into whatever the organization is you cannot possibly put the blame on just one person for that being a bad hire I think that actually sounds rediculous yes okay so I was talking to a company last night hiring manager and founder okay so they're very much like a very small company and they were like I was like hey so what's going wrong why have we not had a hire yet you know we've had some close stuff they're like well when we asked them to solve a problem they either overs solve it or under solve it I go okay what else so I'm like trying to like dig right because I want to know how I can affect this the outcome as much as possible and at the end of the day I I would fullblown said I said is there any questions I can ask them to help fix that problem because it seems like that's a situational issue that I'm not going to be able to even screen on and they really really really really thought about it and they're like no you can't I was like okay so what things can we put into place that we could maybe get as close to that and not constantly waste your guys's time yeah because that like like that's what sucks I think the recruiter is in place to one hunt which is the biggie right to hunt and then also to screen culture-wise and ask as many questions as we can so when they get to the hiring manager the hiring manager knows that I had their back I thought about the company I thought about whether or not this person could get hired because here's the thing though there are recruiters who push as many people through the process as possible and hopes that something's going to stick so it all depends on what kind of recruiter you are so for you listeners if you're the one who's going for volume like you're going to definitely get thrown into you're the reason for a bad hire but if you're actually going through listening to the company's culture missions values you're listening to their communication style you're listening to what the high R manager wants and you're screening effectively then that's it it's like it's it's like you're passing the Baton you're in some kind of some kind of race you know here now now it's your turn I did my job now and now you have to do yours yeah and I think that's where it's really important for recruiters to make recommend ations with regards to the interview process if you don't feel like the interview process is set up for success as far as getting a successful hire you know like if the company's rushing through it and they're skipping a bunch of steps or you know they don't have um any kind of Assessments in place they don't have and and which I am a huge believer in um especially these days because I think they're really powerful and a good indication of what how well somebody can fit into the culture because some of the assessments I've seen um like the dis assess and I've even taken that recently and I'm like I felt like somebody was following me around or like in the flos something it was super accurate it was really really accurate so it's like but that's not just a boxy you're trying to check in your process you need to actually like look at those results if you have those kinds of Assessments in place look at those results and see like is this person truly going to fit don't do it to just check a box don't try to expedite through the interview process and bypass a bunch of different interviews and what I mean by that is like you know hiring in EV vacuum where it's like maybe one or two people interiew inter them and that's it like the recruiter of one other the hiring manager you need to have diversity of thought and opinion and having other people involved in panel interviews that are not necessarily even in that department like I think it's really really good idea to have multiple people talk to that person and and everybody be bought in you know up to five people being bought in on one hire is more powerful than one recruiter being like I absolutely love this like yeah you are going to get the blame in that case but when all these other people interviewed them too it's like okay well you know and how can you really even say it's a bad hire too like the bad hire thing I'm just kind of like what does that even mean yes I was just about to ask you let's really Define that like what does that mean to you or what has that meant like when a hiring manager is like can't believe you like this hire is awful like we got to get rid of them yeah I mean I I don't agree I would to put this display I don't agree with it but what's been told to me as a bad hire are things that are absolutely outside of the recruiter's control about um you know say it's a finance role and it's like their understanding of GL tax structures or I mean I I don't know I know surface level what somebody tells me about that but I'm not a an expert on Global Tax structures you know what I mean I think that there's things like and I think maybe having re realistic expectations for somebody too that's what I've often seen is like they don't have they being whoever it is the hiring manager of leadership team whoever it is don't have realistic expectations for the individual and so they just assume it's a bad hire but it's like well maybe you didn't communicate effectively or maybe that wasn't clear in the interview or maybe you know the question that we asked them are like surface level questions and somebody else actually needed to dig in there more to understand you know if you wanted them to be and this is all hypothetical y'all but like have um you know inner knowledge of global tax laws and in XYZ countries It List off those six you have to get really specific if you want really specific information I think you just said it earlier when you said that you asked the hiring maer what are some questions that I could ask then I think often times hiring managers don't put a lot of thought into that like they don't really put a thought a lot of thought into the hiring process in General with regards like that's not that's not their job and I understand that you know how they could feel like that right that that's not my job that's the recruiter's job but it's like how do you ensure that we do our job successfully because we're not in finance or accounting or engineering you know we only know so much and so you have to kind of tell us here's the questions I'd like you to ask here's some of the answers that I'd be looking for like here's an indication of a good answer um but I think oftentimes hiring managers don't really want to spend the time with the recruiter to to have kind of that knowledge transfer or educate them and then just expect them to know the ins and outs of like an engineering department or accounting department and it's like but that's not what we do for a living you know we don't know the ins and out that's just like you don't know the ins and outs of recruiting spend a little time with us and we'll get the best hire together and then I don't know this bad hire thing I'm like I just don't think a bad hire unless it's like a complete personality conflict is really the only thing I could see as as far as you can call in a bad High because it's like well I mean if they said they could do this job we vetted that we thought they could do this job we vetted exactly we vetted them yeah so it's like is it a really a bad a hire or is it just it didn't work out it's a misalignment it doesn't make the necessarily a bad candidate you know but I the only ones that I would say that I feel like are really just like a bad would be a bad hire would be like if there's an absolute just horrible personality conflict with this hire and their manager this hire coworker literally anybody else like if they're just an awful person to work with and be around it can't and that's not something that as a recruiter we can pick on it up to it to a certain extent but there are those people that can fake it till they make it and you have to remember like you're only talk this person a couple times for maybe an hour at most yeah you know each time they're going to show you the side of them that they want you to see so a 100% so I I'll give you two scenarios that like I'm like well that's a bad higher but I will say um you know one it it it uh called out so fast like the the issue was so fast that I didn't even get paid for it and nor did I want to get paid for it I wanted nothing to do with this I felt really bad and the company was so super sweet to me and they were like oh my God we did not see this coming this is not your fault which you know makes you feel good but the the candidate got hired really fast they fell in love it was like this love story really fast I was like whoa I've never seen like that happen so fast on a higher up position it was director of engineering and the person W had two jobs and was using chat gpt's extension to um uh connect with slack and so he literally was like not working during the day but the slackbot was responding to the team like it was him but obviously as we know chbt is very wordy lots of emojis and stuff if it's not trained properly right um so yeah so it was literally a he was trying to trick the company to get paid and not do any work it was just a bot so it's like you're just a bad person yeah you know like like like period bad person bad hire like I don't know what to tell you like that was awful but no one's going to see that coming I mean there's also I think the scary part is is that nowadays um there are BS passing interviews for people you know and so yeah like companies have to be aware so I think recruiters out there that is something you can help in order to hopefully you know sniff out who's going to be a bad hire is try to put some technology in place to catch you know is this a real person and by the way if you have to do Zoom interview like you have to do video interviews yeah right those things have to be done if people are hiring remotely and not doing that like that is a total total loss cameras have to be on um but I I will tell you one other scenario where the company did blame me and it's like a really good friend of mine who's like who who he didn't blame me but he was like I'm sorry the CEO won't work with you anymore he like totally blames you um but so here's the thing they vetted this person it was actually a long process another small startup talked to like five or six people did a coding challenge like this was like a pretty long process for a small company okay gets hired two months in two months in it takes okay uh actually almost three months because it was past the gu uh he they they call and they're like hey do you do a background check and I'm like no like that's that's your guys's thing like if you wanted me to do a background check I can but you know that's not my job that's an an HR thing right and they're like we don't think this person's the person that interviewed I'm like what so it took them three months okay three months to decide that the person that's working for them was not the person that interviewed how crazy is that so they didn't do a video is this this area where they didn't do a video yeah well they did a video interview in the beginning so the interviews happened but once they onboarded the person they didn't make the person do video so the person was always off video and then they realized wow this person's not Ro writing code uh the quality of code like they were in the interview so then so then they dug and they noticed that the VPN was not at the same location that this person was before so it was a full-blown different person but it took them three months to figure it out so who did they ever figure out who was the person that like did the video interview in the beginning that was really the person who's the resume because that's the person who's on LinkedIn so that was a real person but they never they never really figured it out so I mean crazy stuff like that can happen but again how is this my fault and if it took you guys 90 days to figure it out it's definitely not my fault you no I mean then that's just like that's one of those cenarios where it's like you should be ashamed of yourself or even blaming someone else for that cuz common sense like if it took you months you didn't make the be on camera you didn't do a background check that that's where I was going with um earlier in the conversation where I was like if you're if you need to make recommendations as a recruiter on the process if the process is too short or if there's not due diligence like I mean I I've worked for companies or with companies as clients both scenarios that didn't do background checks and I'm like how are you not going to do a background check on somebody who's going to be managing your money and a finance like that blows yeah I love your pen let see your pen a ha you guys you got to watch this record or YouTube um yeah by the way take pictures of your own pens we want to see it yeah um but uh yeah no it's it's it's kind of crazy so I will tell you like earlier on in my career you were everything was on site there was no remote work right um reference checks to me were kind of like H who gives a bad reference I saw it you know maybe every hundred people right every 100th person someone has a you know has a silly reference check that like what were you thinking um but I will say with remote hiring really background checks reference checks like those are musts and it and and I really think okay I'm wondering what your what your thought process is here what do you think about making them be from the company that they're working at because I know that gets a little hairy no I don't think that's right yeah because I mean why would you want to affect their like I would let somebody affect my full-time job for a what if I might get this scenario yeah no I it's really I think it's a really [ __ ] up position to even put a candidate in to have them like it has to be for your most recent so I have to risk losing my job even though I don't have this one yet I think that's really difficult and I'm also thinking of someone like what if someone's only been at this one company you know like what are you supposed to do I mean then baby at every company you should I'm assuming have co-workers peers people that somebody else that could be a reference for you but I mean what I don't love about that is that puts them in an uncomfortable position that also is like not their direct manager because you can't ask their manager to do it like imagine if somebody asked you to do a reference check and they were one of your employees and they asked you to serve as a reference for another job that they were interviewing for and thought they were going to get an they were close to getting an offer for and this is the first year hearing of it right if it's the first time hearing of it you're like all right it's like well that's your resonation so thank you very much exactly uh yeah yeah no it's at the that That's Heavy no that's so controversial um I could go both ways on it too because it's we're also talking about doing due diligence yeah you know so that's crazy do your due diligence in other ways but I've also and this is really shitty and I don't agree with this either but I've seen like I've seen this being a topic of discussion on LinkedIn tell me if you've seen it as well but where people are like talking about how it does the canidate disservice to have only been with one company it's like well can they be adaptable are they going to be flexible to change it's like I've never heard of it except for these last you know two years or so it being a negative thing that somebody has been completely loyal and worked one company for 10 years 12 years whatever it is and I'm like and now it's now this it does this person a disservice because it's like well how adaptable are they to change how fle stagnant yeah yeah yeah so I hear it a lot in engineering so and here's what's even crazier is they want someone to have been at their job for two at least two years but no longer than six okay you know but so like the the fight on that is what if we show progression like they got you know they got promoted they moved to a different department apartment they're on a different project they're you know like there's so many so many amazing things for a loyal employee yeah um you know uh but you know what is interesting though I will say is anytime I've placed someone that has been somewhere for you know 8 10 years what I've noticed is they went to a company really fast and then left that company within six months really it's almost like yeah it was almost like wait shoot I didn't date enough you know so my my ADV yeah my advice there is like look if you are someone who has been loyal and has had one company for a long time date a lot afterwards don't just jump into something because I think you're also then going to be mourning and used to where you've been for 10 years all of your callings and the way things were done and all of a sudden you're like new processes you're overwhelmed like all of that stuff happened which again totally other episode an interesting episode is how do you adapt to a new company but um yeah I've definitely seen that and it's like no it takes them a couple tries to get it right well this goes back to what we were talking about the other episode about re-energizing yourself is like if You' been with the same company and you're like I need to shake [ __ ] up like I need something to feel different and it's like you didn't date enough or you didn't you didn't you know you didn't water the grass like the grass isn't always Greer on the other side it's GRE where you water it you didn't water it here you know to re-energize I like you know thank you Justin Bieber um doesn't Justin Bieber song but it's even notice it is but it's really really true it's like okay if you're and that's where I was saying in the other episode a whole new respect for that and a whole new appreciation for you know the grass is green where you're watering and just be if you feel like you need to shake [ __ ] up in your life which I totally understand someone's been somewhere eight 10 years um but don't like to your point don't rush into something you know when you leave that company because it the grass isn't always greener and you could fall into something that's absolutely horrible and regret it and wish you would have stayed at your like boring job you know yeah okay well let's uh why do you hit him with a broke toas tip yeah bad hires yeah I mean I I think it's everyone's responsibility so I think my broke to boss tip is like a bad hire is everyone's responsibility and I don't think that it should be put on any one person I really don't and I think that if the process is bad you it is your job as a recruiter to make recommendations on how to better improve the process and better vet candidates especially if you've had have had any bad hires or hires this is another scenario that um you kind of touched on but like working two jobs I've seen that be a theme more these last few years and so it's a it's an employer's responsibility not the recruiters it's the employer's responsibility to put checks and balances in place to to vet that out or make it to where that's not possible for somebody to be able to do that you know I have seen the recruiters get the blame for that since remote work has become a thing since Co you know that it's become a thing where it's like oh well they had two jobs and you didn't know and it's like you didn't [ __ ] know either you know we was new so no yeah yeah and and go ahead I was going to say just I mean the I think the overarching thing is like look a bad hire is that time of reflection and how are we going to do better and never let this happen again but to your brooked boss it's everybody's fault it's everybody's problem it's everybody's exactly it's everybody's fault it's everybody's problem and put Solutions in place so it doesn't happen again like it learn from the first time it happens when you know better you do better whatever that is again it's it's usually in my opinion it's usually because they don't have enough checks and balances in place and they're rushing through a process that they make it bad money if you get desperate you know there's this Gap in the workforce and you know you've got other people covering and you just rush to make a hire and you don't you don't really follow the process like you truly would or put the time and thought into it that you truly would it's a fire drill so you know you have to understand that bad hires could come with fire drills as well yep absolutely love that so for all your recruiters out there who have been blamed for a bad hire we want to hear about it comment ask questions we're there for that battle stories for Life yeah see you next Tuesday thanks y'all