5 Best Practices for Assessing and Hiring a Culture Fit Candidate

Around 81% of hiring managers admit that culture fit employees are better hires as they stay with the organization for a longer time. Such employees bring creativity, innovation and team collaboration to the organization; enabling initiative-taking, increased engagement, and a shared vision. This bolsters morale and positive work culture, thus creating better relationships between colleagues.

Even if we look at employees, approximately 85% of employees in India prefer to join companies with a culture that resonates with their personalities. A study by Leadership IQ revealed that nearly 46% of new hires do not stay beyond 18 months, and surprisingly, lack of technical skills only accounted for 11% of these hiring failures. Cultural misfit is the apparent reason for most of such cases.

This underlines how important company culture is– both for employers and employees. Here are five ways for assessing cultural fit while hiring candidates for your company:

1. Hiring for Culture Fit Requires Transparency
   Company’s values should be clear right from the beginning of the recruitment process. Share your organization’s values and ethos loud and clear. Ensure that all your company’s channels of public outreach and job postings contain a dedicated section about the company’s culture, and make sure it is articulate, up-to-date, and most importantly- true.
   Not only is it essential to share the company’s true values with candidates throughout the hiring process, but it is also vital that the culture reflects in all your interactions and engagement with the candidates– be it in your emails, behavior, or the interviewing process.
   For instance, take the example of a brand like the Tata Group. You will always experience that extra touch of warmth and courtesy from all its employees across dozens of its group companies, and that deep sense of culture is one of the biggest reasons for its strong goodwill.
   You should also encourage the existing employees to share their experiences about the company’s culture on LinkedIn and other social media accounts, as peer experiences are generally, and naturally, considered more genuine by candidates.
2. Train the Recruitment Team
   All personnel recruiting potential employees must be well-versed in your organization’s culture and incorporate it into their interviewing approach. Rather than asking generic questions to assess if a candidate is culturally fit for the company, priority should be given to conducting in-depth evaluation of their non-verbal cues and professional background.
   Recruiters need to recognize that hiring candidates who authentically prioritize their colleagues and care about creating a positive working atmosphere is vital.
   Experienced candidates know what companies look for to determine cultural fit, and often fake their responses according to what hiring managers expect as answers. The recruitment team should be experienced enough to identify such responses, and if need be, hiring managers should be trained to segregate genuine responses from the rest.
   Some popular and proven ways to identify cultural fit are to also conduct culture fit assessments and leverage AI-driven interviewing techniques that use predictive and behavioral analytics to give insights about a candidate’s culture fit, which is otherwise difficult for interviewers to identify.
3. Look Beyond Technical Skills
   Technical skills are indispensable for carrying out a role effectively. However, emotional intelligence, critical thinking, and a positive attitude are equally essential to thrive and excel in any workplace.
   Soft skills highlight an individual’s aptitude to collaborate harmoniously with others and direct skilfully. They further testify to a candidate’s adaptability, resolving dilemmas innovatively, reasoning astutely, and adjusting rapidly to challenging situations. An exclusive focus on technical skills can lead to unsuccessful recruitment efforts and low organizational productivity in the long run.
   For instance, in a highly interactive environment, an individual who works best by themself may not be the ideal candidate to hire.
4. Maintain an Open-minded Approach
   When hiring for culture add, keep your mind open to new ideas and approaches. Assess applicants’ attributes and individuality to determine how they can bring something unique and fresh to your team. Consider what they have to offer that can help drive success, boost sales, and achieve desired goals while aligning with your company’s culture.
   It is important not to limit yourself by searching only for the ideal recruit, because there is none. Instead, adopt an open-minded outlook to identify a culture fit candidate with the potential to grow and be trained.
5. Your Hiring Process Matters
   It is a reality that humans harbor unconscious biases. To ensure equitable hiring practices, it is paramount to strive towards curbing these biases and focus on the capability of a candidate to fit within a corporate culture.
   To keep your hiring process completely unbiased and transparent, write job descriptions focusing on particular skills and educational qualifications, rather than using words such as “highly experienced”, which can be representative of age and years of work experience.
   Hold competency-based interviews, psychometric and aptitude tests to understand candidates who can be a culture add. It is also essential to hire from a wide talent pool with candidates across ages, genders, religions, and social backgrounds.
   Besides these methods, you can utilize your existing network to recruit culture fit people through referrals, showcasing their values and capabilities while gaining insight into how others perceive your company.

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