Companies lost an average of $14,900 on every bad hire in the last year, and it's a common mistake, according to a survey released today by CareerBuilder. Nearly three in four employers, 74%, reported they have hired the wrong person for a position.

When asked how a bad hire affected their business in the last year, 37% of employers cited less productivity, followed by lost time to recruit and train another worker at 32% and compromised quality of work at 31%.

When asked what made them think they had made the wrong decision, employers who have made a bad hire said:

• While the candidate didn't have all the needed skills, thought they could learn quickly: 35%
• Candidate lied about his/her qualifications: 33%
• Took a chance on a nice person: 32%
• Pressured to fill the role quickly: 30%
• Had a hard time finding qualified candidates: 29%
• Focused on skills and not attitude: 29%
• Ignored some of the warning signs: 25%
• Lacked adequate tools to find the right person: 10%
• Didn't do a complete background check: 10%
• Didn’t work close enough with HR: 7%

On the workers’ side, the survey also found 66% of workers have accepted a job and later realized it was a bad fit, and while half of these workers have quit within six months, more than a third have stuck it out. Forty-six percent of workers who said they had taken a job only to realize it’s a bad fit based the mistake on a toxic work culture and 40% said it was the boss’ management style. The job didn’t match what was described in the job listing and interviews was cited by 37% and a lack of clear expectations around the role by 33%.

“It’s important to note that there’s a ripple affect with bad hires,” said Rosemary Haefner, chief human resources officer at CareerBuilder. “Disengagement is contagious — poor performers lower the bar for other workers on their teams, and their bad habits spread throughout the organization. The best thing hiring managers can do is put in the time and effort on the front end to make sure they have the best available pool of applicants for every job opening. And, just as importantly, have good procedures in place for evaluating candidates.”

The survey was conducted online by Harris Poll from Aug. 16 to Sept. 15, 2017. It included 2,257 full-time hiring managers and human resource professionals and 3,697 full-time workers across industries and company sizes in the US private sector.