Bad hires. You've heard the horror stories. But do you know the monetary consequences of hiring the wrong people for key positions within a company? According to a survey conducted in 2006 by career-consulting firm Right Management, the cost of hiring an employee who is not qualified to do their job can cost a company two and a half times their annual salary. If your company experienced two or three bad hires each year, the costs would be overwhelming.

In addition to spending more in recruiting and training replacements, other repercussions include:

• Decrease in employee productivity within departments or company wide
• Lose of brand support by customers and stockholders if a bad hire was in charge shipping, customer service, marketing departments, or was the CEO of the company
• Decreased employee morale
• Difficulty hiring for other key positions

As you can see, one or two bad hires can influence many factors that make your company a successful one.

Benefits of hiring the best recruiters
Within every HR department there should be those who are able to find the best candidates to work for your company. Top-notch recruiters are able to find passive candidates and convince them to leave their current jobs and take a new role. The best recruiters can also find new hires straight from college and not only find great candidates on a national level, but globally as well.

If your HR department does not currently have these individuals on staff, this could be an indication of why there may be a bad hire or two within your company.

The best in the recruiting business can help your company by having:

• Hundreds of professional contacts that can be used to fill key positions and others within a company
• Research skills to find new and innovative talent that exists in other countries and other companies
• The confidence to persuade candidates to work for your company
• The interview and pre-screening skills to quickly decide which candidates, based on a resume or short phone interview, are worth taking a closer look at
• The ability to create metrics for new hires, employee referral programs, and pre-screening methods
• The ability to work well with hiring managers

Because many top recruiters have worked for different companies during their careers and may have helped hire some of the most influential people at these companies, they know what to look for in a candidate and how to determine if they are the most qualified for key positions and others.

Where to find top recruiters
After the dot.com craze of the late 1990's came to a close, many in the recruiting industry were handed pink slips and told their services were no longer needed. As a result, there has been an increasing shortage of great recruiters because of their reluctance to re-enter the field and lose their jobs again. Many recruiters sought jobs in more secure fields in management and other HR related roles. Some found totally different careers. While there are still good recruiters working in various industries, a truly great one is hard to find.

When putting together a team of recruiters for your department, your goal should be to find as many great ones as you can. Hiring great recruiters will inevitably decrease the number of bad hires in the future.

Suggestions for where to find great recruiters:

• Ask top performers in your company who they talked to when they were looking for employment. Asking for referrals will help you determine the amount of talent that is out there. If certain names keep coming up, then you know you are on the right track. Create a list of referrals and begin the cold calling process.
• Contact those in the recruitment field (speakers, educators, consulting firms, etc.) to obtain more names. Those who have been in the business for a while will know others. Most great recruiters are not posting their resumes online or calling around to see if there are job openings. Great recruiters are already working for someone or they are working in another field or area of HR. You will have to do some research in order to find them.
• Ask those in HR who their mentors were in college or while interning. Many times great recruiters are managers, supervisors, or even professors. Chances are they are not posting their resumes online either.
• Use the Internet to find recruiters who are currently working for another company. Passive recruiters should be treated like any other passive candidate ¡V you may need to do a lot of convincing to get them on board, but it will be worth it.

The bottom line
Talented recruiters are necessary in order to ensure that key positions are filled by qualified people. A great recruiter will be able to market a job opening in a way that will deter unqualified candidates while attracting qualified ones. Spending time developing a recruitment group within the HR department will help save a lot of money in the long run and help your company look more attractive to potential candidates.