Nine-in-ten small business owners, 89%, identify hiring the wrong person for a job as a risk to the company, according to the Small Business, Big Hire survey released today by Monster Worldwide Inc. (NYSE: MWW). And 51% say it is a major risk.

Among small business owners who view hiring the wrong person as a risk to their business, top reasons include a negative impact on the company’s reputation and decreased productivity, at 68% and 62% respectively.

While 82% of small business owners surveyed consider talent to be the greatest asset to the success of their business, 89% believe it can be time consuming and 70% believe it is expensive to find the right person for the job.

“We’ve heard loud and clear that small business owners struggle to find the right person for the job, and as a result have made the wrong hiring decision on more than one occasion,” said Meredith Hanrahan, senior VP of small business solutions at Monster.

On average, small business owners spend $1,872 to hire someone new and up to four months searching for the right candidate, depending on the job level. Furthermore, about four in five owners are looking for a strong skill set for the industry (78%) and past job experience (77%) when hiring someone new, while 52% also look for something less tangible: grit.

More than half, 56%, have settled for a candidate who was not as qualified as they would have liked and 62% have previously made a wrong hire.

Of those who have hired the wrong person before, 56% are investing more time to make sure they don’t do this again, but 18% aren’t doing anything at all.

Although nine in 10 small business owners find the hiring process time consuming and three-fifths wish they had more help in finding the right person for the job, only 11% of owners are currently hiring an outside service to help recruit, according to the survey.

Monster commissioned Braun Research to poll the views of a representative sample of 639 small business owners in the US who have one to 50 full-time employees. The online survey was fielded between March 16 and March 21, 2016.