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Cost of a Bad Hire Calculator

Skills get someone in the door. Fit is what they leave over. See what one wrong hire really costs.

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Cost of one bad hire
 
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How much does a bad hire cost?

Estimates range from about 30% of the employee's first-year salary for frontline roles (a commonly cited industry estimate) to three or four times salary for senior roles (SHRM-published commentary). The total includes recruitment, onboarding, the salary paid while they were in the role, lost productivity, management time, and the cost of replacing them.

Where Compono fits

This is the number that makes the case for measuring fit before you sign. Compono Hire does everything your ATS does on the process side, then adds behavioural profiling with 92% culture-fit prediction accuracy, so you see who will actually thrive in your team before you make the offer. Lyre's scaled from 4 to 70 people in two years on the back of it without diluting culture.

See how it works

How it's calculated

We total every cost a bad hire creates: the recruitment spend, onboarding and training, the salary paid during their time with you, lost productivity, the manager hours spent managing and then exiting them, and the cost of hiring all over again. The default uses a share of first-year salary that rises with seniority, from about 30% for frontline roles to well over 100% for senior ones. The frontline figure of about 30% of first-year salary is a commonly cited industry estimate; for senior roles SHRM-published commentary cites up to three to four times salary.

New to the term? Read the plain-English definition of culture fit in the HR Glossary.

Common questions

What is the formula for the cost of a bad hire?

Add recruitment cost, onboarding and training, salary paid during their tenure, lost productivity, manager time spent managing and exiting them, any severance, and the cost to re-hire. A quick estimate is a percentage of first-year salary that scales with seniority.

Why do bad hires happen if the candidate had the right skills?

Most bad hires meet the skills requirement but clash with the team, the culture, or the way the role actually works day to day. Hiring on skills alone leaves the fit question unanswered, which is where the cost comes from.

How can you reduce the cost of a bad hire?

Measure fit, not just capability, before you make the offer. Behavioural and culture-fit assessment alongside skills screening lowers the chance of the expensive fit failures that drive most bad-hire costs.

This page is general information, not legal advice. We check figures annually and update them on a best-efforts basis, but employment rules change and we cannot promise everything here is current or complete. Before you act on it, confirm the detail with the relevant authority in your country or your own adviser. Last reviewed July 2026.