Bad Hire Calculator

Plug in your best guesstimates. Play with the numbers. You may be surprised by what one wrong hire costs when you add up the full cycle: the empty seat, the hiring process, the bad hire, and doing it all over again.

The Empty Seat

The position is open. You're short-handed. Work is piling up or getting covered by overtime.

How many weeks was the seat empty? Before you made the hire
weeks
Estimated weekly cost of being short Overtime, delayed work, missed opportunities, crew burden
$/week
Section cost:$0

The Hiring Process

Your time posting the job, sorting through applicants, screening, interviewing, making a decision.

Hours you spent on the process Posting, reviewing, screening, interviewing, coordinating
hours
What's your time worth per hour? What you'd be doing instead of hiring
$/hr
Job board or advertising costs Indeed, social media boosts, etc.
$
Section cost:$0

The Bad Hire

They started. You trained them. It didn't work out.

How many weeks did they last?
weeks
Training hours invested Your time and your crew's time getting them up to speed
hours
Trainer or mentor hourly rate The person who spent time showing them the ropes
$/hr
Other costs Safety incidents, equipment damage, crew disruption, rework
$
Section cost:$0

Starting Over

The seat is empty again. You're back to square one.

How many more weeks until the seat is filled again?
weeks

This section also includes your weekly cost of being short-handed, plus your hiring process time and ad costs again.

Section cost:$0
Total cost of one bad hire cycle
$0
Empty seat
$0
Hiring process
$0
Bad hire
$0
Starting over
$0

Now multiply that by how many times it's happened.