As half of new employees regret taking their job offers this year, many employers are also unsure whether they made the right hiring decisions, particularly as one in eight new hires did not work out in the past year, according to a study by Development Dimensions International.
"There is a great paradox in that both unemployment and the number of open positions hover at uncomfortably high levels — and simultaneously, organizations and candidates are shaky about the decisions they made in staffing and accepting roles this year," says Dr. Scott Erker, senior vice president for DDI's Selection Solutions and the study's co-author.
Regarding top reasons for hiring decisions, approximately one-third of employer respondents say it came down to an overreliance on hiring manager evaluations, and 21 percent of employer respondents say it is due to candidates exaggerating their own skills.
Recommended For You
"An unpleasant surprise after a candidate becomes an employee is that the new hire just is not cut out for the job," Erker says. "The shame of it all is that information about candidates goes undiscovered in the selection process. Hiring managers need to go farther below the surface to really get to the truth about an employee's fit for the job."
In fact, only 48 percent of employer respondents consider their hiring processes highly effective. The research finds that interviews are the best method to predict a new hire's performance, but they must be conducted correctly, and only one in three employer respondents report that their hiring managers are properly skilled at interviewing.
Less than two-thirds of employer respondents say they base interview guides on defined competencies for the available position, and less than 30 percent of employer respondents believe their interviewer training programs are adequate. Forty-eight percent of employer respondents classify retention of new hires as a priority.
For employer respondents outside of the United States, 10 percent are more likely to consider their selection systems as effective in choosing the right candidates. The research finds this could be that countries outside of the United States rely on more tools for assessing candidates.
"One way to avoid quick quits is to be real in describing what it will be like on day five, 50 and 150 for that candidate during the interviewing process," Erker says. "Painting a rosy picture or pulling a bait-and-switch once they're on the job will just mean you'll fill that position again in six to 12 months."
© 2025 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
