How to Avoid Making a Bad Hire

How to Avoid Making a Bad Hire

From Tea with the Queen by Emma McQueen

May 24, 2026 · 29 min · Season 6 · Episode 122

About this episode

In this episode, Emma McQueen discusses the challenges of hiring and provides a framework to make the process more effective and less daunting.

Hiring is one of those business milestones that sounds simple until you’re the one doing it, and because most of us aren’t hiring every week, it’s easy to second guess yourself, delay it, or rush it when you’re already exhausted. In this episode, we’re talking about why so many women put hiring off for too long, what hiring fear really looks like in a growing business, and why “I’ll just keep doing it myself” quietly becomes the most expensive option. I’m sharing what I’ve learned from sitting on every side of the hiring table, from recruiter to HR Director to coach, and the patterns I see over and over when business owners start hiring. We’ll unpack the real cost of a bad hire (it’s not just money), and why messy hiring decisions tend to leak into your time, your energy, your confidence, and your team. You’ll also hear the simple hiring framework I come back to when I want hiring to feel calm and commercial: getting clear on what to delegate, writing a position description that actually attracts the right person, hiring for skill and will, and building a basic interview process and onboarding plan so you’re not winging it. If hiring has been sitting on your to do list for…

People in this episode

Host: Emma McQueen

Topics covered

  • hiring
  • business growth
  • women in business
  • decision making
  • interview process

Keywords

  • hiring
  • bad hire
  • business decisions
  • women entrepreneurs
  • interviewing
  • onboarding
  • delegation

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: Go-getter: Raise your mojo, shift your mindset and thrive

More episodes of Tea with the Queen

Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the Tea with the Queen podcast page.