Connecting Recruitment And Culture
A company’s culture is its unique calling card and potential employees either fit into that culture or they don’t. Your culture is the outward manifestation of your corporate values, beliefs, and principles. These are the driving forces behind your strategy and the reason for your business’ existence. The employees you bring into your business must support and nurture that culture: contributing positively to daily interactions and ultimately finding their own success and fulfillment. Hiring for culture may take more investment in time and energy upfront but the stability it ensures is far worth it in the long run.
When you hire you must be aware of the fact that you are creating an enduring culture. The culture itself becomes self-reinforcing as people who don’t fit in eventually leave. In fact studies show that more often than not, people are hired for ability and fired for fit. The importance of being able to integrate smoothly into a company’s “way of doing things” is a critical factor in any employee’s success and hiring employees who are a good fit leads to company wide success.
While the importance of culture is quite irrefutable it is also very ethereal. How do you assess a potential employee’s ability to fit in?
The short answer is you take the time necessary to find out who the candidate really is. You have to get beyond the education and experiences listed on their resume and find out what brings out the best in that person. Of course you don’t want to spend this kind of time with too many applicants and that is where an effective selection process comes into play, but once you are confident that you are interviewing only the most appropriate candidates you then need to take your interview process to the next level and incorporate culture questions into the process. Here are some examples of questions that address cultural fit.
- Tell me about the best boss you ever worked for. What made the relationship effective?
- Tell me about a time when you were most dissatisfied working with a manager. What exactly caused the dissatisfaction?
- Recall for me a time when you found it very difficult to get along with a coworker. What was the root of the problem?
- If you could create the ideal work environment, what would it be like?
- When were you most satisfied with your work performance?
- What is the best thing a boss has ever said to you?
- Tell me about a time when you were unmotivated and someone at your workplace was able to help you out of your slump. What did he or she do or say?
- What is the most discouraging thing a boss has ever done or said to you? Why?
- What is the best reward you have ever received at work?
- What do you know about our company that excites you?
As you can see all of these questions are designed to get the candidate thinking and talking about what is important to them and what makes a constructive, positive work environment. Answers to culture questions are not right or wrong: they simply are what they are. Your job is to evaluate how well your current environment will motivate the candidate to do a good, if not exceptional, job.
It is very difficult for people to fight against their personality and natural inclinations and it is next to impossible to mold someone to fit into a situation where their values and principles are not inline with the environment. Don’t even go there when hiring new employees. It is far better to interview 50 candidates and not hire anyone, than introduce the wrong person into your culture. It won’t be satisfying for the candidate; it won’t be satisfying for you; and it has the potential to create instability in the core of your workplace, which could end up costing you much more than a few lost hours of interview time.
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