The Cost of a Bad Hire
Why the biggest cost isn't salary. It's lost momentum.
Every sales mis-hire costs ₹3–5 lakh.
I'm not talking about salary.
Most founders think a bad hire is expensive because they paid someone who didn't work out.
The biggest cost is starting over.
You spend months hiring.
Training.
Coaching.
Then you realize you hired the wrong person.
Now the pipeline is empty again.
Imagine replacing someone bringing in ₹8 lakh with someone bringing in ₹3 lakh.
That ₹5 lakh gap is the cost.
Salary was the distraction.
Momentum was the loss.
This is why hiring is a prediction problem.
The best interviews don't ask who sounds impressive.
They ask who is most likely to improve.
Resumes help a little.
Conversations help a little more.
Work tells you the most.
Give candidates something that resembles the job.
Ask them to research prospects.
Write cold emails.
Handle objections.
People can prepare for interviews.
It's much harder to fake sustained effort.
Good hiring isn't about finding perfect people.
It's about making fewer predictions that turn out to be wrong.