You’ve worked hard to build the culture of your organization. And every new hire can either strengthen or weaken that culture. If you hire employees who don’t fit your culture, they likely won’t work as well with other employees, which will diminish teamwork and lead to inefficiency and less innovating products and services. Hiring employees who don’t fit in with your company culture will not only damage the groove within your organization; it will also negatively impact your bottom line.
On the other hand, when you hire employees who fit your culture, they blend in easily from day one. They are already compatible with the core values and norms of your organization. And because many of today’s younger workers are specifically seeking positions at firms that fit their own values, finding hires that are cultural fits is a win-win for both the company and the employee.
Here are four tips for recruiting and hiring employees who will fit well with your company culture:
4 Tips for recruiting and hiring employees for culture fit
Translate values into behaviors.
Spend time analyzing your company values and determining how those values translate into actions. For instance, if you want employees who are “team players,” that might mean they stay after hours to help colleagues solve a problem, or they look for ways to acknowledge others’ contributions to their successes. Putting these value-based behaviors in writing will help you and your recruiting team to develop a firm grasp on the type of people you’re looking for.
Communicate value-based behaviors to hiring managers.
Spend time training managers and others who are involved in the hiring process on your company’s culture and values, and make sure they understand the types of behaviors and actions that show whether someone is a good fit.
Use behavior-based interview questions.
Rather than asking applicants about their values, behavior-based questions ask them about how they’ve handled situations in the past. The specific examples the applicants share from their past will help you determine whether they have a history of acting with your core values at heart. “The basic premise of the behavioral interview is that past performance is a good predictor of future performance,” according to Angela Stanton, Ph.D., associate professor of marketing at Radford University. For instance, you might ask, “Tell me about a time when you had to be really flexible,” or “Can you share a situation when you were able to build rapport quickly with someone in a stressful situation?”
Communicate your core values to potential candidates.
Use your careers page, blog, and social media accounts to regularly communicate your company’s culture and values to potential applicants. Rather than simply stating a list of your corporate values, get creative and share stories that demonstrate those values in action. For instance, you might post brief interviews with current employees sharing examples of how your team celebrates successes together or what it means to be a family-friendly workplace.
