Two Grey Suits - Unique Staffing & HR Solutions

Hiring Mistakes Are Costly

The President of a Toronto based distribution company needed a sales representative for Western Canada. He decided to handle the recruiting task personally and used a local contingency recruiting firm to source candidates. An individual was hired but after a short time on the job it became apparent that he was not qualified for the job. If references had been taken up, it would have been clear that the candidate had experienced problems in previous roles. While the contingency firm agreed to find a replacement free of charge, the company ended up paying over $30,000 to terminate the individual.

No Reference Checks

A well known "executive recruitment firm" was hired to fill a VP-HR position. They charged the client a hefty recruitment fee but did not call one single employment reference. Luckily, the candidate was an excellent choice and the recruitment firm's client didn't get hurt…this time!

No Pay Raise In 15 Years

An long-term employee did not have a performance review with her company for 15 years, and consequently had no raise in pay. She had to threaten to sue in order for her pay level to be reviewed and adjusted.

A Little More Conversation Will Get More Action

A very senior manager with 12 people reporting directly to him regularly went for a full fiscal year without even having one conversation with 8 of his 12 direct reports. When confronted, he wondered why he was not supported by his direct reports.

Who's That?

In one of our assessment initiatives, we interviewed a senior manager who could not properly identify the people who reported to him (hmmm…pretty hard to manage people if you don't know who reports to you!).

Leggo My Ego

A company owner let her ego get in the way when she insisted on making her own personal choice for her next HR Manager. After being advised against this, she proceeded anyway, and the person she hired turned out to be a disaster in every sense (poor fit, lack of proper/required job skills, low employee credibility). To make matters worse, the situation lives on because the egotistic owner won't admit she made a mistake. She did not check references, conduct a proper search or even consider any other candidates. She saved a search fee, but at very considerable expense to the company in many other areas. And it's not over yet!

It Pays To Check

A senior Clinical Manager was hired via a boutique executive recruitment firm. Four weeks into the job, serious job performance issues surfaced. In reviewing the file, we discovered that the recruitment firm did not make even one reference call, but they still collected their $60K recruitment fee. Further research revealed that if even one call had been made, this candidate would never have been hired.