How To Establish Whether A Candidate Is A Good Cultural Fit

What Is meant by Cultural Fit?

Every company will have its own workplace culture, and with it, you’ll have to call into consideration who would make a good cultural fit. Company culture is something that’s developed as a result of the company’s values, and those who are already working for it. It’s important to consider the cultural fit so you can make the hiring process easier for you and the hiring managers. In the long run, this will lead to fewer mistakes when it comes to picking the right new team members.

It can be difficult for a company when you’re limited on resources, but hiring an employee that’s not the right fit means a costly mistake.

You want someone whose own views line up with those of the company’s, and someone who can be a good match for the people working with you already. It’s not easy to make sure your employees are a cultural fit, but you want to find that out during the interview process.

What is a good cultural fit?

So what makes a good cultural fit? It’s easy enough to find employees who are agreeing with your company’s values, but you need to make sure you’re asking the right interview questions. Generally, you may have times where you have to pick between someone who is properly qualified for the job and someone who is a good fit for your company. Ideally, you’ll want to pick the job candidate who is more likely to fit in and have an easier time working with everyone - as the qualifications are something you can improve with training.

You can bring someone up to speed on what they need to know with professional development courses, and while it might be expensive - hiring an applicant who is the better fit for the organization's culture is more valuable. It’s much easier to train someone than try to have someone adapt to the core values of your company.

How Do You Determine Your Company’s Own Cultural Fit?

If you’re looking for ways to determine your organizational culture, it comes down to the leader of the company, and how you want your company to be seen. You need to make your values clear to your current and future employees, meaning that people can follow suit - creating a corporate culture for your own company.

Of course, having a company culture is important, but it’s not always going to be a good idea to hire for cultural fit. Having some diversity can be healthy when it comes to a company’s growth, but you still need to consider how someone might fit in when you’re employing them.

Cultural Fit Assessment

When you’re looking to get past the risk of hiring people based on the unconscious bias of your cultural fit, you might consider a Cultural Fit Assessment. It’s not easy to measure if someone is a good fit for your company, and during the recruitment process, it’s not necessarily going to be an easy task to figure that out for yourself. An assessment with a range of questions that are based on your company’s culture can be a great way to gauge whether or not the new employee has the suitable personality traits and the right competencies for the job.

What are some cultural fit questions?

Talent acquisition can be difficult, but interview questions you ask can make the world of difference. If you’re looking to make sure you get the right new hires for the job, then you’ll want to be making sure that you’re asking all of the right questions - that are reasonable enough for them to answer properly. You want to get information out of them that they were ready to answer, and you want to know what makes them a good fit for your company in order to make a successful hiring decision.

There’s a lot you can learn in the interview process, and you want to know all about the people who are going to be working for you every day. If you want to properly assess their skills and how they can be a fit within your workplace, then you need to make sure you have your questions right. Your candidate’s answers will tell you whether or not they’re going to fit in, and some answers will be more obvious than others.

Cultural Fit Questions: Standard Questions

How do you handle stress or tight deadlines? This one is a question that your applicants should be ready to answer, and it can give you a good idea of whether or not they’re going to be able to work under the same pressure that all of your other employees are used to working under. It’s a simple question, easy enough to answer.

What was your best teambuilding experience? If you know your team, then you know what works best for them, and their answer can tell you a lot. You want someone who is going to be able to fit in during collaborative projects, and their experience with teambuilding will tell you how well it might work out.

Why should we hire you? Asking your applicant directly why they think you should hire them is the same as asking them to list their qualities. They’ll tell you what they bring to the table, and why they think they’re a good fit within your company. It doesn’t beat around the bush, and it’s a good way to find out what they’re good at, and why they want to work for your company.

What are your greatest strengths? It doesn’t get more basic than this, and your interviewee should be fully ready to answer it. With this question comes an opportunity to complement their own skills, and they can tell you exactly what they excel at. This is a good opportunity for you to find the skills that you’re looking for.

What are your greatest weaknesses? To follow the question about their strengths, asking about their weaknesses puts them in a position, to be honest about their downfalls. You want to know where they struggle, as it can tell you how you can help them grow, and whether or not they’re going to struggle in the work environment that you’re currently trying to maintain. If their weakness is something that contradicts something that you’re looking for - it can be troublesome.

Cultural Fit Questions: Interactive Questions

Do you have a favorite book? It’s more of a personal question, and it allows the applicant to tell you about themselves, rather than just their work life. If you want to get to know someone better, it can help to ask them about the things that they enjoy, and whether they share similar interests to those working under you already.

What’s your social life like? Again, not necessarily about work, but you’re looking to find out how they handle being around other people. Are they talkative? Are they distracted? It’s another question about their personal life, and it can tell you a lot about how they might act while they’re in the workplace.

Can you explain something complex to me in under 5 minutes? While it might seem like a strange question, asking them this will allow you to test their communication skills. If you want them to work well in a team, you want to know how well they are at relaying information and explaining things in detail. If they’re able to get you to understand something, then their communication skills are sufficient; on the other hand, if you’re completely lost after their explanation, they might be lacking.

Tell me about something you could have handled differently. It’s not a question, but asking them to talk about this will tell you how willing they are to grow. It’s important to reflect on mistakes that you’ve made and learn from them. You want them to tell you about a time they have previously grown from their mistakes - and this is a great way to do it without beating around the bush.

Cultural Fit Questions: Unconventional Questions

Would you have come to this interview if you were wealthy? It’s more of a trick question to get the applicant to talk more about themselves. It’s difficult to answer for the applicant, because while they might feel you want them to answer yes - the obvious likely answer would be no. if they were to answer yes, you would then have to find out their reasoning behind it; maybe the position they’re applying for is something they’re passionate about.

What is the toughest decision you’ve ever had to make? We’re often defined by our actions, and while this question might be too personal - if your interviewee is willing to answer, it can tell you a lot about them. Not only that, but people like to talk about their previous experiences, and this might be a good opportunity for them to impress you.

Do you have any advice for your previous boss? This is a very tough question for an applicant to answer, as you’re asking them something that might seem out of place for them to say. It’s as if you’re asking how you could possibly do better at your job - but that’s why you’re asking it. You want to know how they feel about the hierarchy, and how they might respond to things that you would ask of them when they’re working for you.

How Do You Make Cultural Fit Consistent?

If you’re looking to make sure you’re getting people who are in line with your company’s cultural fit, then you need to find a system that works and stick to it. If you know the right questions to ask your employees, and you have a good assessment in place, then being consistent is going to be important. Finding a good standard of applicants means you’re going to have a lot of the same types of people looking to fill in your vacancies.

Whether it’s asking the same questions during the interview to find the same responses, or assessing people in the same way before the interview; being consistent is the best way to find consistent results.

Benefits of a Good Cultural Fit

There are many benefits when it comes to finding a good cultural fit within your workplace, and missing out on them can be costly. Of course, you’re not going to want everyone to be the same person, and diversity can still be invaluable to you and your business, but you want to make sure that everyone is able to work well together.

Having a good cultural fit in your workplace means that everyone is likely to have a much easier time when they’re working together, as values are shared and respected. You want people to be able to work together and near each other to ensure that things are done efficiently and properly. When you need teamwork to be done, there will be a lot fewer problems than there would if you filled the room with completely different individuals.

Not only is cultural fit good for teamwork and work efficiency in general, but it can help the workplace morale. When employees are getting along, they’re much happier to be working with each other, and with that, they’d be willing to work harder. The workplace can be a dull environment when you don’t get along with anyone, and it’s important to make sure that your business is maintaining a positive environment.

Conclusion

In conclusion, having a good cultural fit for your workplace means you’re going to have an easier time getting things done. Your team will be happier, and they’ll be able to work together much more efficiently. Messages won’t get mixed, and there will be much less office drama. You also won’t have to worry about employees going against conduct, as ideally, their views are in line with the company’s core values.