What bad hires cost — and why the CV is where it starts

38.8% of new hires in New Zealand leave within twelve months — one in every 2.6. Across 608,000 hires a year, that is about 236,000 failed hires. Not bad people; relationships that did not last when both sides meant them to. One in 2.6 is a systemic failure we have normalised.

It keeps happening because very large decisions are made on very thin information. A CV written in a hurry says what someone has done and almost nothing about how they work, what they value, or what they want next. An interview adds an hour of performance; references arrive late and managed. That is not a hiring decision. It is an informed guess with a salary attached.

A Living Professional Identity is kept rather than assembled, so the evidence is written while it is still true. It is wider than roles and dates, so the things that predict a durable hire are in the record rather than lost to a format. It does not remove judgement from hiring. It gives that judgement something real to work with — and that is the gap the billions are falling through.