Expensive mistakes! The Top 5 worst financial recruitment mistakes ever?

We always knew that recruiting the wrong person can be an expensive business. Spare a thought for the recruiters who decided to take these 4 guys on board. Between them they racked up losses for their firms of over £5.6bn. I think we can class that as a bad recruitment mistake?

£3.7bn – In pole position, Jerome Kerviel - Société Générale. By far the biggest recruitment mistake. This loss dwarfs any single loss by any of our other entrants in the list. It is alleged that he was making trades way above his authority level since 2007. He was making up losses to offset the gains he was making, which ended up backfiring but it was too late to stop huge losses for the bank. It’s said that he worked alone and didn’t profit personally from what he was doing. The investigation into exactly what happened continues…

£827m – he held the top slot for a few years, Nick Leeson – Barings Bank. The most famous rogue trader in our list, Nick Leeson, brought down one of the grandest names in British banking. Leeson initially made large profits for the bank by dealing in derivatives and futures. But after running up losses, he hid his bad trades in a single account in 1992. These losses grew over several years, forcing him into a series of increasingly desperate but unsuccessful attempts to make the money back. Leeson finally fled in February 1995 after a bet that the Tokyo stock market would rise went badly wrong.

£551m – In it for the long run, Toshihide Iguchi - Daiwa Bank. Toshihide Iguchi, one of its senior US executives, confessed in a 30-page letter that he had lost $1.1bn through unauthorised bond trading. Iguchi ran up the losses over several years. Having risen from the back offices to become a trader in 1984, a lack of segregation within his division meant he could hide his losses from his superiors while he tried, and failed, to trade back to profit. Following his confession, it emerged that he had conducted the cover-up for over a decade

£355m – A lesson in following your gut instinct, John Rusnak – Allied Irish Bank. Betting mainly on the Japanese yen in the mid 90s, Rusnak used fictitious trades to hide his losses over several years. Some outsiders suspected that all was not well, with Goldman Sachs reportedly refusing to do business with Rusnak. But it took until 2002 before routine checks finally uncovered the true nature of the bank's exposure.

This is the first in a regular series of some of the world’s worst recruiting mistakes. For example, some of England’s Football team managers may be in the running, or perhaps some politicians that have caused more harm than good. Let us know of any expensive mistakes you can think of. Write to us at the.mole@thecareermole.com