You'll find plenty of articles quoting a percentage of salary as the "cost of a bad hire". We'd rather not add another unsourced number. The more useful exercise is to work out what a mis-hire would cost your finance team, because the answer usually justifies taking the process seriously.
A simple way to estimate it
Add up these five lines for the role you're about to hire:
- Salary and on-costs for the months before the problem is recognised and acted on.
- Hiring costs twice: fees or advertising, plus the hours your team spends on interviews, now and when you rehire.
- Management time: the hours you or your Financial Controller spend reviewing, correcting and managing performance.
- Rework and risk: late or wrong month-ends, audit adjustments, missed VAT deadlines, poor forecasts that drive poor decisions.
- The team effect: colleagues covering gaps, and the risk that a good team member leaves.
For a Finance Manager or Financial Controller, line four is often the largest, and the hardest to see on a spreadsheet.
Where finance mis-hires come from
- Hiring the CV, not the job. A strong qualification and the right sector don't tell you whether someone can run a month-end with half the team they're used to.
- Unstructured interviews. If each interviewer asks different questions, you end up comparing impressions.
- Skipping the practical. A short, realistic exercise, such as a variance commentary, a reconciliation review or a board-pack critique, shows how someone works.
- Overlooking motivation. A candidate moving only for money is more likely to leave for money.
Checks that cost little and prevent a lot
- A scorecard with four or five criteria agreed before the first interview.
- One practical task matched to the real job.
- Referencing focused on the specific things you're worried about.
- A 90-day plan agreed at offer, so expectations are clear on both sides.
Hiring a finance role and want to reduce the risk of getting it wrong? Book a 30-minute call.
Read next
Counter-offers in finance hiring: how to plan for them before you make the offer
A counter-offer rarely comes out of nowhere. Most of the warning signs are visible at first interview, if you know what to ask.
How long should a finance hiring process take? A shortlist-to-offer plan for a two-stage process
Most finance hiring processes don't lose candidates at interview. They lose them in the gaps between interviews.
Why good finance candidates drop out of your hiring process (and how to fix it)
Candidates rarely tell you why they withdrew. These are the reasons we hear when they tell us.
The South West Finance Hiring Guide 2026/27
Salary bands for eight finance roles, a two-week shortlist-to-offer plan and counter-offer advice, written by Eliot Acton.