New hires dump their companies after just five days

New employees aren’t loyal to a company until they are certain that the role is what they expected

Employers might be surprised to learn that they only have five days to impress a new recruit before they decide whether to stay or go. A new study reveals that the majority of UK professionals will leave a new job within the first week if it’s not what they expected.

The research from CV-Library was conducted amongst a cross-section of over 4,000 UK employees to uncover how quickly they decide if a new role is right, whether or not they’d stick around if they’re unhappy and what influences them to make these decisions. Key findings revealed:

  • 41% of new employees decide whether to stay in a new job within the first week
  • This figure increases to 45% for Millennials
  • When unhappy, 30.6% of new recruits will leave as soon as they have secured another job
  • 48.4% of staff still actively look for work for up to one month after starting a new role

It’s clear that, despite accepting a job offer, new employees aren’t loyal to a company until they are certain that the role is what they expected. The most common reasons as to why a recruit would choose to leave a new role, include:

  1. Unfriendly working environments – tops the list with 51.2% admitting this would quickly cause them to leave a new job
  2. Lack of opportunity for progression – 42.1% cite this as another main reason to leave
  3. Being or feeling underpaid (18.2%)
  4. Dealing with poor management (15.2%)
  5. Negative stories from unhappy staff (11.3%)
  6. Poor work-life balance (8.2%)
  7. Feeling unappreciated (7%)

Lee Biggins founder and managing director of CV-library comments:

“The recruitment process doesn’t end in the interview room. Time is of the essence when on-boarding a new employee and it’s important businesses understand how critical the first week of employment is. Organisations that are regularly experiencing the loss of new recruits should be taking the opportunity to uncover any flaws in their working environments. Our data shows that there are clear reasons a new recruit would leave, and most of them can be easily corrected.”

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