By Nimit Bheda,
Every organisation has, at some point, hired someone who turned out to be the wrong fit. The impact of such hiring is rarely limited to a wasted salary. The costs of such mistakes extend to training, lowered productivity, disruption to teams, delays in projects, and the expense of running the recruitment cycle again.
Research by the US Department of Labor estimates that a bad hire can cost an organisation nearly 30 per cent of the employee’s first-year earnings. While comparable data for India is not available, the figure is likely to be higher here given the gaps in detection and intervention. In many Indian companies, months of salaries are paid before a mismatch is recognised, by which time critical projects may already have been delayed or compromised.
A global study by KPMG in 2024, ‘Beyond the Résumé — Background Screening to Protect Organisational Integrity,’ found that almost 30 per cent of cases carried significant red flags. These included undisclosed reasons for leaving a previous employer, ongoing legal disputes, and behavioural concerns raised by former colleagues. India featured in this study, underscoring that the risks are not abstract but very real in the local context.
The challenge is not limited to hiring the wrong person. Even when companies select the right candidate, slow background verification processes delay onboarding and hurt the business. A standard verification cycle in India can take two to three weeks. During this time, productivity is lost as positions remain vacant, teams operate under pressure, and projects slow down. Worse, candidates sometimes withdraw because of the uncertainty, forcing companies back to square one. In other words, both a bad hire and a slow hire carry significant costs.
Why Mistakes and Delays Happen
Hiring is a chain of interconnected actions involving HR teams, verification agencies, and candidates. In theory, these groups work toward the same goal, but in practice, they often function in silos. Candidate data is shared through scattered emails or spreadsheets, which creates errors and duplication. Agencies, working with incomplete or outdated information, struggle to deliver accurate reports. HR teams, under pressure to close roles quickly, may proceed without full visibility. Candidates, left waiting without clarity, either grow anxious or disengage.
These process gaps lead to two outcomes: verification takes longer than expected, and decision-making rests on partial information. Both are damaging. In India, where the average time to fill a role is over 40 days and senior positions can take months, restarting the cycle after a failed or abandoned hire is costly and strategically damaging. On the other hand, rushing verification creates blind spots. A candidate may be onboarded without key red flags being identified, only for issues to surface later, by which time the damage is already done.
What Better Coordination Looks Like
The solution lies not in adding more checks, but in redesigning the process so that stakeholders no longer operate in isolation. Technology now makes this possible. A single platform, like CredCorp, that connects HR teams, agencies, and candidates ensures smooth information flow in real time. HR managers can see the status of each check without chasing vendors. Agencies get accurate, filtered, and structured data directly, which reduces duplication and errors. Candidates are kept informed at every stage, which lowers anxiety and discourages dropouts.
When processes are coordinated in this way, the difference is clear. Verification timelines shrink from weeks to days, candidate experience improves, and the likelihood of blind spots reduces significantly. Most importantly, hiring decisions are made on reliable, complete information rather than assumptions or rushed judgement.
Why This Change Is Urgent
This shift has become critical for three reasons:
First, regulatory expectations are rising. Boards and auditors are paying closer attention to hiring processes. In regulated sectors such as BFSI, IT services, and healthcare, the cost of a lapse is not just financial but legal and reputational.
Second, professionals in technology, e-commerce, and digital-first sectors often hold multiple offers. They move on if an organisation doesn’t provide clarity and speed.
Third, cost pressures are intensifying. Managements are being asked to achieve more with leaner budgets. Large organisations—especially GCCs, IT services firms, BFSI, logistics and e-commerce companies—maintain substantial HR operations teams dedicated to background verification. These teams often spend weeks on manual coordination and follow-ups. Streamlining this work through smart technology not only cuts operational costs but also accelerates hiring and improves its quality. What was once absorbed as the cost of doing business now directly erodes competitiveness.
Beyond HR: A Strategic Imperative
It is tempting to treat background verification and hiring coordination as routine back-office tasks. That thinking is outdated. A bad hire is not simply an HR error. A slow hire is not a trivial inconvenience. Both are strategic risks that affect efficiency, compliance, brand credibility, and growth.
Most importantly, they are preventable. Organisations rarely miss out on the right talent because the market is empty. They miss out because their processes are broken. Fixing those processes—by embedding coordination at every stage—transforms hiring from an administrative function into a strategic lever.
For boards and CXOs, the message is clear. One wrong hire can cost upto Rs. 30 lakhs. One slow hire can set back projects by weeks. But a well-designed, coordinated hiring system can prevent both outcomes and protect long-term resilience. In a market where talent is the ultimate differentiator, seamless hiring coordination is not about convenience; it is about competitiveness.
The author is Founder & CEO of Credentia.
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