How To Evaluate Culture Fit
How many times have you heard that someone was let go because they “weren’t the right fit”?
How many times has someone told you they left a company because they “didn’t like the culture”?
Cultural fit has a huge impact on the success and job satisfaction of candidates, but is often underprioritized when hiring. The truth is that a job can look great on paper, but can be a candidate’s worst nightmare if they don’t enjoy the culture. Similarly, a candidate can be great on paper, but jeopardize or underperform within your company’s culture.
Before we start solving this problem, let’s align on what is meant by company culture and cultural fit.
What is company culture and cultural fit?
What is company culture? Company culture refers to the values, beliefs and ways of behaving that a company and its employees hold. It encompasses the how people work and why.
What is cultural fit? Cultural fit refers to how well aligned a candidate’s values, beliefs, and behaviours are with that of the company. It also includes whether a candidate’s preferred ways of working match the the company’s current work style.
When hiring, managers often focus on the skills a candidate needs to fulfill the activities and objectives of a given role. That is still critical to successful hiring. However, knowing how important culture is to both the success of the company and candidate, managers should also look to assess cultural fit during the hiring process.
It is entirely possible to find a candidate who ticks off all the boxes (experience, skills and competencies) - but is not a good cultural fit with your organization. Before rushing to send an employment contract, consider these statistics:
47% of active job seekers cite company culture as their driving reason for looking for a new job (Source)
73% of professionals have left a job because of poor cultural fit (Source)
35% of workers say they would decline the perfect job if they felt the company culture wasn’t a good fit (Source)
For more stats on the impact of culture, read more in our blog on building a powerful culture.
While it’s tempting to hire the ‘ticks-all-the-boxes’ candidate - an employee with a poor cultural fit has a higher likelihood to either (1) be frustrated in the job and quit in the short term, or (2) stick it out but jeopardize the productivity of people around them. When you hire, you’re making a high-stakes, long term investment in that candidate. So how can you assess whether they will stay and thrive in your company culture?
How to evaluate cultural fit
Cultural fit is notoriously hard to measure, and there’s a huge concern for managers disguising biases as concerns for fit. Here are a few recommendations to evaluate cultural fit during hiring:
1) DEFINE YOUR CULTURE
Knowing what you’re looking for is the first step. In the same way you list the skillsets and competencies required for a role, you can list the cultural beliefs, goals, values and/or communication style your company seeks. You can even including these cultural criteria as supplemental grading factors in the interview scorecard.
2) ASK CULTURAL FIT QUESTIONS IN INTERVIEWS
Give the candidate an opportunity to describe how they like (and dislike) working. Some cultural questions can be very direct and open ended, for example:
Do you prefer working independently or with a team?
Describe the work environment or culture in which you are most productive and happy.
What are the characteristics exhibited by the best manager you have ever had—or wish that you have had?
How would your co-workers describe your work style in your former job?
What gives you the most stress?
Other cultural fit questions can be more situational. Situational questions gauge how they would behave and make decisions in a context they’re likely to face in the role. Some examples include:
Tell me about a time when you made a mistake at work and how you handled it.
Describe a time where your team resisted an idea you introduced. How did you address this?
Describe a time you had to learn something new to complete a task in your role. How did you approach this?
Was there a time where you had to work with a difficult manager or coworker? How did you handle this?
3) LEVERAGE BEHAVIOURAL ASSESSMENTS
Behavioural assessments help to uncover what motivates a candidate and how they enjoy working, which in turn helps identify cultural fit. Candidates sometimes tell you what they think you want to hear. These assessments will reveal more of the candidate’s true (and even subconscious) behaviours.
For example, these assessments could tell you if a candidate:
Thrives when working with clear documented processes that require following, or
Thrive in an environment where they focus on an end goal but have the freedom and autonomy for how they get there.
If you’re a startup that is trying to scale while also building the foundations of the business, you probably want a candidate who fits the second description.
By using a behavioural assessment, you can gauge which behaviours and environment candidates are more likely to lean towards. They’re also excellent at prompting you to ask deeper interview questions for certain candidates. For instance, if the assessment indicates that a candidate prefers clear processes, but in the interview the candidate states they work will without them, you’ll know to ask probe further into their comfort with ambiguity and self-direction.
Our take
Too often, cultural fit makes its way into conversations when it’s too late - i.e. when an employee is getting ready to leave or a manager needs to let someone go. Assessing cultural fit at the hiring process creates a win-win scenario - saving both the candidate and company time and stress before delving into what can be an unhappy partnership.
At Ari Agency, our north star is to help you find your greatest hire of all time. We go the extra mile to understand your business values, objectives and culture to help you make better hiring decisions. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you improve your hiring process and find your next all-star.
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