How Do You Hire for Culture Fit?

Attracting potential employees who meet skill and experience requirements is one thing, but finding future hires who also fit your organization’s culture can prove to be a tougher task. Running necessary background checks does not provide insight into how potential employees will embody your corporate culture. Frankly, getting a culture fit is oftentimes harder than simply hiring for position requirements. 

Start with Culture Definition

Before you can start thinking appropriately about culture fit of potential new hires, you need to have a clear understanding of what your company culture is and whether there need to be any adjustments to your culture. Has the leadership of your organization clearly defined the culture they want? And if they have clearly defined a desired culture, how close is the organization to possessing the desired culture? Are your employees going to embrace the defined culture?

Tools to Define a Culture and Make the Right Hire

I start with a simple cultural assessment to make sure an organization is aligned with the culture defined by its leadership. There is no sense wasting recruiting dollars until you have a basis for looking at cultural fit.

 Once I have the organization culture in view, I use the Harrison Assessment with my clients who want to find employees who will be highly engaged in supporting their organization culture. There are pros and cons to utilizing assessments for hiring purposes, but I have found the Harrison to be very effective at revealing more about potential hires than resumes and interviews. The Harrison helps us see if a person has the personality and interests to be a good match for a specific role, and it can help us see if the candidate would be interested in and capable of supporting organization culture.  

 A single assessment, or even a group of assessments, don’t typically paint a complete picture of a person, and should not be relied upon as the sole source of information when making hiring decisions. But a robust, multi-dimensional assessment such as the Harrison goes way beyond most other assessments in helping employers understand what they might get if they hire someone.

Do You Want to Hire Cultural Fit Employees? Let Conover Consulting help you identify your culture and align it with your recruiting strategies. Our Cultural Alignment services work with your current and future culture champions to align your team to be more focused and productive. Take our assessment and contact us.

For additional reading on Cultural Alignment, please see my previous articles, What is the Best Way to Measure Company Culture? and Why Every Company Needs Culture Champions