Building a great team starts with finding great people. Top firms spend an inordinate amount of time recruiting. One worldwide executive recruiting firm conducts between 25 and 40 interviews per hire. A leading financial services company interviews a single potential employee up to 200 times before extending a job offer!

Most of us don’t have the time or resources to put job candidates through such a rigorous recruiting process. We can, however, take the time to check out a potential new employee thoroughly before asking him to join our team.

If you’re wowed by someone’s technical prowess but concerned about his honesty or attitude, don’t risk it. When we have justified hiring someone—usually in response to an especially heavy workload—he may have provided short-term relief but he did not work out in the long term.

Tom’s Takeaway:  Avoid hasty hires. While it may seem like a simple solution in the short term, you’ll end up paying more and spending more time on the process in the long run, since employees hired in a hurry rarely make a good fit.