Traditional recruiting has always focused on finding the best candidates who are available, right university, poaching from the competitor etc however this doesn’t always prove to be the best choice. Instead of recruiting for just skill and experience perhaps we should be recruiting for culture as well. Hiring for potential means that a candidate who may not appear perfect on paper could be just the candidate you are looking for if placed in the right environment. Research suggests that companies who embrace this approach see employee satisfaction and retention increase and performance improve.
Recruiting for cultural fit means focusing on whether the candidate’s values align with those of the company. Companies like Google, favour ability over experience and Googlers share common goals and visions for the company. To effectively recruit for cultural fit, companies need to reflect their culture in every part of the hiring process. Below are some best practices for Attraction, Assessment and Onboarding.
Attraction Best Practice
Once a clear culture is developed communication between HR and marketing have to be aligned as the company’s culture needs to be reflected externally through social media and your website.
Assessment Best Practice
Get the candidate onsite so they can “feel” the culture and meet the employees. During the interview process instead of using the “over-used” and “tired” interview questions think about introducing psychometrics to the interview as it is a more scientific way to measure something that most feel is immeasurable.
Onboarding Best Practice
Inductions and training need clear and consistent branding and cultural messaging. Resourcing and L&D need to have a clear and united process.
There is of course a risk to hiring just for cultural fit and in doing so could cause highly skilled candidates to be overlooked just because they don’t fit the culture ‘type’. So what’s the answer? In our experience there are three points that help a company get it right:
- Recruiters need to understand the value proposition and clearly articulate it to the candidates.
- Understand how culture relates to the competencies and capabilities that your company promotes. Review the selection process and the ways in which you screen the position, use behaviour based questions to better understand cultural fit.
- Remind managers that hiring for culture is fine and important however the interview processes must be unbiased and limit personal reactions to a candidate’s socio-economic status.
