The quiet cost of a mis-hire
The expensive part of a wrong hire is rarely the salary.
The visible cost of a mis-hire is easy to name: compensation, severance, the fee. It is also the smallest part of the bill.
The larger cost is time. The mandate sat unfilled while the search ran, and now runs again. The strategy that needed the seat filled waited a year to find out the seat was still empty. Momentum does not refund.
The quietest cost is to the team’s trust in its own bar. A wrong addition tells everyone that the standard is negotiable — and standards, once softened, are slow to firm back up.
This is the case for doing fewer searches, more carefully. Precision is not slower because it is cautious. It is slower because it is thorough — and thoroughness, here, is the cheapest thing you can buy.