February 21, 2024
When it comes to hiring a new employee, assessing their cultural fit is just as important as evaluating their qualifications and how much experience they have. Research has shown that 73% of employees have left a job due to being a bad culture fit. But how can you ensure you’re hiring the right person, culturally, for your company?
It all starts with asking the right questions to figure out exactly who the person is, their communication style, what environment they thrive in, and how they collaborate with other people. You can find out plenty about someone by asking them certain open-ended questions. The power of words!
Let’s break it down.
A cultural fit for an organization refers to the alignment of a person’s values, beliefs, and behaviors with those of a company's brand, vision, and day-to-day operations. In other words, it’s someone who fits right in with a company, gets along really well with their coworkers, is open to feedback, knows the tone of voice of the office, and is someone who’d be able to represent your company.
While all those mentioned previously highlight a great cultural fit, here are a few scenarios of an incompatible fit:
You get the drift.
If you want to work out what your own culture is at your company, you should start broad and narrow down: Take time to write down what your company's goals and values are as a whole and then see how future employees will match up. Ask yourself the following questions:
Once you have an understanding of this, you’ll then be able to find candidates who are potential matches.
Company culture is important because it can have a direct impact on many of the business practices and performances including workflow, productivity, employee retention, creativity, and innovation. When employees share the same values and beliefs, they’re more likely to work well together, communicate effectively, and stay at an organization for longer.
Louis V. Gerstner, Jr., former CEO of IBM said:
“Until I came to IBM, I probably would have told you that culture was just one among several important elements in any organization's makeup and success — along with vision, strategy, marketing, financials, and the like... I came to see, in my time at IBM, that culture isn't just one aspect of the game, it is the game. In the end, an organization is nothing more than the collective capacity of its people to create value.”
And if that isn’t enough, the fact that you’ll be spending a third of your life at work should be enough of a motivator to make your work experience as hassle-free as possible.
There are many questions to ask a candidate to figure out if they’re a good cultural fit. Here are the best ones:
Although you don’t have to ask a candidate every single one of these questions, it should give you a rough guideline on what to ask. You can always revert to this page if you’re drawing blanks.
Finding the right cultural fit is not about homogeneity; every candidate will have their weakness but it’s about diversity within the alignment. Not everyone will be best friends with their co-workers either, but being motivated, sharing the company’s values, being open to feedback, and helping one another strive toward a common goal is enough to have a long-term winning relationship.
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