What’s a Good Batting Average in Hiring? Accepting That Perfection Isn’t the Goal
TJ Kastning
Introduction: No One Gets Hiring Perfect
Every leader wants to get hiring right.
You put in the effort.
You refine your process.
You analyze every candidate.
🚨 And yet, some hires will still fail.
The reality is, even the best hiring leaders don’t bat 1.000.
Yet the business world is flooded with over-simplified advice from:
❌ Thought leaders claiming they have “one question” that reveals everything.
❌ Consultants who’ve never actually hired or led a team.
❌ Recruiters who promise perfect hires but have never had to manage one.
👉 They don’t deal with the real-world complexity of leading people. You do.
Let’s break down what a realistic hiring batting average looks like—and why you shouldn’t be too hard on yourself when a hire doesn’t work out.
1. Even the Best Get It Wrong Sometimes
In Major League Baseball, a .300 batting average is elite. That means:
✅ They’re among the best in the world.
✅ They get paid millions.
✅ And yet… they fail 7 out of 10 times.
💡 Hiring is no different.
The most skilled leaders, with the best processes, will still experience some hiring failures.
🚧 Why? Because hiring is complex.
- People change. They may start strong and fade under stress.
- Companies change. The role may evolve, and they may not adapt.
- Unforeseen personal circumstances. Life happens—health issues, family moves, or other outside factors can shift priorities.
- Interview deception. Some people are just good at talking their way into jobs.
- Cultural mismatches. Someone may look great on paper but clash with the actual team.
🚨 No amount of effort eliminates these variables entirely.
👉 If you expect to get hiring perfect every time, you’re setting yourself up for frustration.
2. What’s a Good Hiring Batting Average?
While there’s no universal metric, here’s a realistic way to think about hiring success rates:
✅ A-Level Hiring Process → 70-80% Success Rate
- Most hires perform at or above expectations.
- Some hires exceed expectations and become high performers.
- A small percentage fail or don’t work out.
✅ B-Level Hiring Process → 50-70% Success Rate
- Some hires do well, but turnover is higher.
- More hires require extra coaching or adjustment.
- Cultural mismatches or competency gaps appear more often.
✅ C-Level Hiring Process → Below 50% Success Rate
- High turnover.
- Frequent team disruptions.
- Many hires don’t meet expectations.
💡 If you’re consistently making strong hires 70-80% of the time, you’re doing better than most.
🚨 If you’re expecting 100% hiring success, you’re chasing an impossible standard.
3. Why “Guaranteed Perfect Hiring” Is a Lie
Ignore the clickbait hiring advice that claims hiring can be boiled down to:
❌ “The one question I ask to know if someone will be loyal.”
❌ “The secret trick to hiring only A-players.”
❌ “How to make sure every hire works out.”
🚨 This is nonsense.
Here’s why:
📌 People are not static. You’re not hiring a tool with fixed specifications—you’re hiring a dynamic person who evolves over time.
📌 Even great hiring processes can’t predict everything. Skills can be tested, but attitude, adaptability, and long-term motivation are harder to gauge.
📌 The interview process is an artificial environment. Candidates are on their best behavior, and leaders are making judgments based on limited interactions.
💡 Good hiring is not about eliminating mistakes—it’s about reducing risk and improving odds.
4. What Separates High-Performing Hiring Leaders?
If perfection isn’t the goal, what should leaders focus on?
✅ 1. Learn from Mistakes, Don’t Just Move On
- Every bad hire is data.
- Conduct post-mortems on failed hires: Was it the interview? Onboarding? A skill mismatch?
- Adjust your hiring process, not just your candidate pool.
✅ 2. Focus on Hiring for Long-Term Fit, Not Just Immediate Need
- Many hiring failures happen because leaders focus too much on immediate problems.
- Instead of asking, “Can this person do the job today?” ask, “Can this person grow with us over time?”
✅ 3. Improve Your Interviewing Team’s Skills
- Most interviewers have never been trained on how to interview well.
- Implement structured interview lanes, scenario-based testing, and written feedback before discussion.
- Stop relying on gut instinct alone—train interviewers to assess consistently.
✅ 4. Balance Speed with Thoroughness
- Moving too fast = Hiring on impulse, missing red flags.
- Moving too slow = Losing top candidates, making rushed last-minute choices.
- The best leaders balance urgency with precision.
5. Accepting That Hiring Is an Imperfect Science
📌 Bad hires don’t mean you’re a bad leader.
📌 Hiring failures are inevitable—even with great processes.
📌 The best leaders focus on improvement, not perfection.
🚀 If you’re winning 70-80% of the time in hiring, you are doing extremely well.
💡 Instead of chasing perfection, focus on making your hiring process better every time.
Need Help Strengthening Your Hiring Process?
At Ambassador Group, we help construction leaders:
✔️ Optimize their hiring process to reduce risk.
✔️ Improve interviewer skills to increase success rates.
✔️ Diagnose why hires fail—and how to fix it.
📍 Schedule a call here → Ambassador Group Exploratory Call 🚀
