While every HR Manager wants to avoid making the wrong hiring decision, internal pressures to shorten your hiring time and external concerns, such as skills shortages, can make it difficult to spend time improving your hiring process. 

However, without a thorough recruitment process in place, you risk the costs of a bad hire and jeopardise your organisation’s culture and reputation in the process.

Implementing digital footprint checks can provide you with powerful insights from your candidate’s social media, web content and online behaviour to minimise the risk of a bad hire. 

But are they worth the cost? And what is their return on investment?

The costs of a bad hire

Financially, it’s estimated that a bad hire can cost up to 30% of the employee’s salary; a mistake many organisations can’t afford to make. This can include lost hiring costs, revenue, productivity, performance management and training resources. In extreme cases, it may include legal fees.

As well as this, there are many costs that go far beyond the financial and opportunity costs created for HR teams when things go wrong. The cost of a bad hire has become more extreme during the COVID-19 pandemic, with their negative impacts having a “ripple effect” throughout organisations. 

They may also cause disruptions to the entire organisation by:

• Decreasing team productivity and morale
• Creating toxicity within teams
• Negatively affecting workplace culture
• Causing other employees to resign
• Creating potential risks to digital security 
• Threatening the organisation’s reputation and brand

While digital footprint checks add an additional layer of insight to minimise these risks, it’s important to consider how effective they are in finding indications of a potential bad hire.

How many people show indications of being a bad hire?

While your candidate may appear to be the perfect fit on paper, throughout your interview process, and even after traditional background checks, their online life may indicate otherwise. 

From the thousands of digital footprint checks conducted by CheckSocial, our findings have shown 1 in 5 candidates’ online activity and social media will show red flags that indicate them as a potential bad hire. Our reports present these red flags, or cultural fit indicators, to allow you to assess them against your organisation’s values, conduct and social media policies.

Further still, 1 in 10 people assessed by their digital footprint may be considered high risk. These are potential catastrophic hires, who may put your organisation at risk of workplace violence, harassment, theft, or other counterproductive behaviours that often lead to legal action.

The cultural fit indicators discovered by digital footprint checks are often missed by traditional background checks.

The costs and inclusions of digital footprint checks

The cost of a digital footprint check ranges around $195 per check, depending on the number of checks performed by an organisation each year. 

Each check includes a breakdown of the candidate’s online life and includes any indications of:

• Discriminatory behaviours, such as racism, sexism, homophobia, ableism and hate speech
• Criminal history and conduct, such as fraud, acts of violence, and cybercrime
• Unprofessional behaviours, such as online bullying, strong language, explicit content, substance use and bad-mouthing employers or coworkers

In addition to identifying risks, a check can highlight positive aspects of a candidate such as their online reputation and influence, to help you gain an overall picture of who they are and what is important to them. Our reports also provide data about their work history, education and awards.

How to calculate your ROI on digital footprint checks

If you are considering modernising your hiring process with digital footprint checks, calculating your return on investment will provide clear evidence of the positive impact they can have on your organisation. 

To help you to do this, we have created a free Digital Footprint Check ROI Calculator, inspired by the work of Proforma Screening and using the work and formulas by Charles Handler, Ph.D. and Steven Hunt, Ph.D. 

The free calculator uses current Australian statistics to calculate the financial cost of a bad hire and allows you to calculate your own ROI by inputting details of your:

• Expected number hires per year
• Turnover rate
• Average time to fill a position
• Average hiring costs

ROI is determined by these details, as well as the average cost of a digital footprint check and the expected reduced turnover that comes from implementing them. 

The ROI calculator provides you with science-backed research that digital footprint checks can not only prevent bad hires but deliver value to your bottom line – through improved culture, increased productivity and reduced risk of reputation damage.  

Download the free ROI calculator today, and learn how digital footprint checks can add value to your organisation.