How Do You Really Know What’s Behind That Polished Resume?
Bad hires come in many varieties, but they share common traits. They miss deadlines consistently. Communication? Forget about it. You send a message and wait… and wait… and wait for a response. Their work quality is inconsistent at best, requiring constant oversight and correction.
You know the feeling. It’s Tuesday afternoon, and the project you assigned last Monday is still nowhere to be found. The employee is unreachable. Their last message was “Got it!” but clearly, they didn’t get it at all.
The Real Problem: Most Hiring Lacks Proper Screening
Here’s what’s happening across all hiring channels: people have gotten very good at presenting themselves well during the hiring process. They know what to say in interviews. Their resumes look polished, and their references sound positive. But there’s a massive gap between looking good on paper and actually delivering results.
Whether you’re hiring from job boards, networking events, or referrals, the fundamental challenge remains the same. How do you identify who can do the work versus who can just talk about doing the work?
The really damaging hires aren’t the obviously incompetent ones. Those you can spot quickly. The expensive mistakes are the smooth talkers who interview beautifully, start strong, and then slowly reveal their true capabilities. By the time you realize the problem, you’ve invested weeks of training, introduced them to clients, and restructured workflows around their supposed skills.
When they flame out, the damage is significant. According to research by the U.S. Department of Labor, the direct financial impact of a bad hire typically averages about 30% of the employee’s first-year earnings. That’s expensive whether you’re paying local wages or global rates.
You Don’t Have Time to Become a Hiring Expert
As a business owner, you have products to develop, clients to serve, and a company to grow. Yet hiring mistakes force you to become a recruiter, spending evenings and weekends posting jobs, reviewing applications, and conducting interviews that often lead nowhere.
And proper vetting requires expertise most business owners don’t have time to develop. You need systems for skills assessment, behavioral evaluation, reference verification, and cultural fit analysis. You need processes beyond the standard interview to predict job performance.
Most business owners wing it. They ask standard interview questions, check a few references, and hope for the best. But hoping isn’t a hiring strategy.
That’s precisely why we built HireSmart Virtual Employees.
Our Proven Vetting Process Eliminates the Guesswork
Step 1: Comprehensive Skills Assessment We’ve spent a decade developing screening processes that predict job performance. Only one percent of applicants pass our complete evaluation. Every candidate undergoes written and math skills testing, verbal communication assessment, comprehensive background checks, and problem-solving evaluations using real scenarios they’ll face on the job.
Step 2: Intensive Performance Evaluation Before any virtual employee starts working with you, they complete 40 hours of certification training with our team. This isn’t just orientation. It’s a full work week where we assess their performance under real working conditions. We verify they can deliver the quality you expect when nobody’s watching.
Step 3: Ongoing Performance Monitoring We don’t just hire and hope. We provide performance monitoring tools, ongoing training opportunities, and support systems that ensure continued success. If issues arise, we address them proactively so small problems don’t become big ones.
“Hillary always goes above and beyond helping with our tasks and often takes on additional projects even outside of her original scope of support,” said a client about their VE. “She communicates so efficiently with our staff, and we are overjoyed to have her as a part of our team!”
What Proper Vetting Actually Delivers
When you work with candidates who have been thoroughly evaluated, everything changes. Your team member doesn’t just complete tasks. They anticipate your needs, take ownership of outcomes, and consistently deliver quality work without constant oversight.
“Rachel is one of the most willing employees I have ever worked with,” said one client about their VE. “She takes direction incredibly well and is always hungry for more. She is the ultimate team player.”
Our placement success rate is 98%. When we match you with a virtual employee, there’s a 98% chance it will work out long-term. This results from proper screening processes that most business owners don’t have time to implement themselves.
We also provide 16 certification classes for continued skill development, performance review templates, and ongoing support. You get a hiring partner, not just a candidate placement service.
“Neil is about the company and making sure that the company is doing well and that we all look good with our client,” said a client about their VE. “He takes initiative to help resolve issues and is always available.”
The Cost of Inadequate Screening
Every hour you spend managing an underperforming employee is an hour you’re not spending on strategy, client relationships, or growth initiatives. Bad hires create work for other team members who must fix their mistakes. They can damage client relationships and prevent you from finding the right person for the job while dealing with their inadequacies.
If you’re spending 20 hours screening candidates without proper systems, you’re investing significant time without guaranteeing success. Most business owners end up repeating this cycle multiple times for the same position.
The hidden cost isn’t just the time. It’s the opportunity cost of not having the right person in the role contributing to your business growth.
Partner with Proven Expertise
You have two choices: keep improvising your hiring process and hoping for better results, or partner with people who have already invested a decade in perfecting candidate evaluation systems.
We’re selective about the clients we work with to ensure success for you and our virtual employees. We’re looking for business owners who understand that proper vetting is worth the investment and who want to work with people who take hiring as seriously as they do.
Your time is too valuable to waste on trial-and-error hiring. Your business deserves team members who have been properly evaluated and prepared for success.
Ready to experience what happens when hiring is done right? Click here to schedule a free consultation about how HireSmart’s proven vetting process can help you find your next star team member.
To read more, see:
3 Steps You Should Take Before DIY Hiring a Virtual Employee