Making the wrong hire can cost employers big time, with the cost not just measured in dollars—although there are plenty of those involved—but in the ripple effects they cause in the organization.

So says a report from Careerbuilder.com, which says in a new report, "if you're not hiring the right people, your ability to succeed in other aspects of business can be greatly compromised." And bad hires can be pricey in more ways than one: the survey found that companies lost an average of $14,900 on every bad hire in the last year, and more businesses had the problem than you might think, with 74 percent of employers saying they've hired the wrong person for a position.

Then there are those ripple effects. Rosemary Haefner, chief human resources officer at CareerBuilder, says in the report, "It's important to note that there's a ripple affect with bad hires. Disengagement is contagious—poor performers lower the bar for other workers on their teams, and their bad habits spread throughout the organization."