Latest / Hiring & Firing with Fexingo: Recruitment, Performance, and Workforce Decisions / The Worst Hiring Mistake I Ever Made and What It Cost
Transcript
- Lucas: I hired someone once who had the best interview I've ever seen. He was polished, confident, had a perfect resume from a competitor. And within six months, he had cost the company about two hundred thousand dollars in lost revenue and damaged relationships. Luna: Ouch. What was his role? Lucas: Sales director. We were a B2B software company, about forty people at the time. He came in with this big personality — he talked about 'closing the enterprise gap' and 'building a world-class pipeline.' And I bought it. Luna: So what went wrong? Did he just not deliver? Lucas: He didn't deliver at all. His first quarter, he brought in exactly zero new deals. He blamed the product. He blamed marketing. He blamed the sales enablement materials. And I kept thinking — he's too smart to fail, he just needs time. That was my mistake. Luna: You were invested in your own decision. It's hard to admit you picked the wrong person. Lucas: Exactly. And that's the thing — the more charismatic the candidate, the harder it is to walk it back. You think, 'I saw something. I must be right.' But the data was screaming at me from month one. Luna: What data specifically? What were the early red flags? Lucas: First, his answers were always big-picture but never specific. I asked him, 'How did you increase revenue at your last company?' He said, 'I transformed the sales process and aligned it with customer needs.' Great — but by how much? In what timeframe? He never gave a number. Luna: Classic over-promiser. They sound great until you ask for the metric. Lucas: Second, his references. I called them, but I didn't ask the right questions. I asked, 'Was he a good sales leader?' They said yes. I should have asked, 'Tell me about a deal he lost. What happened?' and 'Would you hire him again for a role that requires hitting a number in the first ninety days?' Luna: So you were doing reference checks, but you weren't digging deep enough. I think a lot of us do that — we just want confirmation. Lucas: Exactly. And the third red flag was his resume. It was too perfect. Every job, every metric — year-over-year growth of forty percent, fifty percent. But when I pressed on how, the story fell apart. It was always 'the team did it' or 'the market was hot.' Never his specific actions. Luna: Honestly, if today's episode was worth a coffee to you, that's the link — buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. We keep this show ad-free because of listeners like you, and it helps us keep digging into stories like this. Lucas: Yeah, it really does. And it's a tiny way to say this content matters to you. Alright — so let's talk about what I should have done differently. Luna: Please. I'm taking notes. Lucas: The one question I now ask every sales candidate is this: 'Walk me through the exact process you used to win your biggest deal at your last company. Start from the first cold email to the signed contract. What did you do each week?' Luna: Oh, that's specific. They can't bluff that. Lucas: They can't. If they were really the one driving the deal, they'll know the details — the objections, the pricing negotiation, the internal champion. If they were just along for the ride, they'll give you vague, high-level stuff. Luna: So you're basically asking for a case study on the spot. That's a great filter. Lucas: It is. But even that isn't enough. After I made this hire, my team and I built something we called a 'promise tracker.' It's a simple document. Luna: What's in it? Lucas: During the interview process, we write down every specific claim the candidate makes. 'I will build a pipeline of two million dollars in the first quarter.' 'I can reduce churn by fifteen percent.' Then, after they're hired, we review those claims every thirty days. Luna: So you hold them accountable to their own promises? That's smart. And it's fair — they said it, not you. Lucas: Right. And if someone consistently over-promises in the interview, the tracker will show it fast. But the real lesson for me was about my own psychology. Luna: What do you mean? Lucas: I wanted a star. We had a revenue gap, I was under pressure from the board, and this guy walked in looking like the solution. I let urgency override rigor. I've seen it happen in startups especially — everyone wants the 'hired gun' who will fix everything overnight. Luna: That's the shiny object syndrome. The charismatic outsider who promises a quick fix. It's seductive. Lucas: Seductive and expensive. In our case, it cost the company about two hundred thousand dollars in direct costs — his salary, severance, plus the lost deals we didn't close because he was mismanaging the team. But the indirect cost was worse. Luna: What was that? Lucas: Morale. The sales team lost confidence in leadership. Two good reps quit because they didn't believe we could hire well. It took us almost a year to rebuild trust. Luna: So the real cost wasn't just money — it was time and culture. That's huge. Lucas: Exactly. And that's why I tell every founder and hiring manager: when you feel the urge to hire fast because a candidate seems perfect, slow down. Do an extra reference call. Ask for the specific numbers. And always, always build a promise tracker. Luna: I love that. So if someone is listening right now and they're in the middle of a hiring process, what's one thing they can do today to avoid your mistake? Lucas: Send the candidate an email with three specific scenarios: 'Tell me about a time you missed a target. What happened? What did you do? What did you learn?' If they can't give a real, detailed story, that's a red flag. The best hires own their failures. Luna: They don't just talk about successes. Good point. Alright, let's take a quick break — we'll be right back with more hiring lessons. Lucas: Actually, let's keep going — I want to share one more thing about how we fixed our hiring process after this disaster. Luna: Oh, go ahead. Lucas: We introduced a 'red team' review. Before any final offer, a group of three people who weren't involved in the interview process look at the candidate's file. They have one job: find reasons not to hire this person. They play devil's advocate. Luna: That's interesting. Doesn't that slow things down? Make it harder to close candidates? Lucas: It does add a day or two. But it's worth it. In the first year, the red team flagged two candidates who had major issues — one had a pattern of job-hopping that we had missed, another had exaggerated his role at a previous company. We dodged two bullets. Luna: So you're saying that the cost of slowing down is much smaller than the cost of a bad hire. I think a lot of companies don't realize that. Lucas: Exactly. The average cost of a bad hire for a mid-level role is something like thirty to fifty percent of their annual salary, according to some estimates. For a senior role, it can be multiples of that. And that's just the direct cost. Luna: And we've already talked about the indirect cost — team morale, lost productivity, customer relationships. Lucas: Right. So if you're a founder or a hiring manager listening, here's my challenge: the next time you're excited about a candidate, force yourself to spend one hour doing a deep reference check. Call someone they didn't list. Ask about a failure. And if the story doesn't hold up, trust that feeling. Luna: That's a good place to leave it. Lucas, thanks for sharing that story. I know it's not easy to admit a mistake, but I think it helps a lot of people. Lucas: Thanks, Luna. If it saves one listener from making the same error, it's worth it. And hey — if you've got a hiring horror story, we'd love to hear it. You can reach us at the Fexingo website. Luna: Absolutely. Until next time, keep hiring smart.