Four Steps to Ensure a Culture Fit During the Hiring Process

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 By Koleen Singerline

“I came to see, in my time at IBM, that culture isn't just one aspect of the game – it is the game.” – Louis V. Gerstner Jr., Former CEO, IBM    

I’m currently working with an HR Manger to fill a key role in the legal department of a large company.  When I mentioned I had a good candidate in mind, she said to me, “Send me her resume before you even speak with her and I’ll hand it over to the attorneys. They’ll know if they want to see the candidate based on the firms she previously worked for.  If she didn’t work at the right places, she won’t be a fit here, regardless of her skills.”

 “Wow,” I said, “that’s pretty extreme.”  Despite my comment, there was just no getting past it. In this case, you were where you worked.

While I believe there’s definitely more to a candidate than what appears on his or her resume, this incident brings up the important issue of “culture fit”. With the large number of companies that I’ve gotten to know in my years of recruiting, I’ve seen the “chemistry” factor come into play time and time again. For example, I’ve seen a highly skilled employee be miserable and ineffective with one employer, yet become an integral player with another – solely based on chemistry.

To make sure we’re all on the same page, I’ll give you a definition: the word culture comes from the Latin "cultura", ‘growing, cultivation’, with its root meaning ‘to cultivate’.

• noun: the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution or organization.
• verb: to maintain in conditions suitable for growth.

To make a successful hiring decision, it is important to understand your company’s culture.  Hiring an employee that doesn’t fit into the company’s chemistry will not only detract from your new employee’s ability to work, but will also interfere with the dynamic of your existing staff.

I’ll give you a real life example. Two companies that are repeatedly chosen in Fortune’s “Best Companies to Work for” are Google and the FBI. They’re two great companies… but have two way different cultures.    

Google receives more than one-thousand applications every day. Its engineers are encouraged to spend one-fifth of their time on a company project of their choice. The work environment is notoriously intense, yet encourages each employee to be independent and creative. Also, there’s not much of a structured corporate hierarchy - everyone wears several hats and is a contributor to the company’s success. In comparison, the FBI has a far more structured culture.  Special agent applicants must have 20/20 uncorrected vision and pass rigorous physical fitness tests.

Whether your culture is closer to Google or the FBI, you can take some basic steps to make sure you are choosing new hires that will fit in. First, take some time and think through how you would describe your culture.  What type of behavior is rewarded in the environment? Are most employees Type A or B?  

Once you have defined your culture, list some questions that can be asked on an interview that will bring out the applicant’s behavioral tendencies.  For example, if you have a competitive culture, you might ask the applicant what sports he or she has participated in and what he or she learned from that activity?  An answer such as, “I played every game with winning as the focus and that’s how I approach my work,” will indicate a competitive individual that would fit into your culture.

The next step is to ask someone from your team who embodies the chemistry you are looking for to spend a few minutes with the applicant. Ask this person if they think the candidate would be a good fit for the team. This can give you a valuable second opinion.

Finally, a member of the management team should spend some time with the applicant and share the company’s vision.  This manager should ask the applicant to give an example of how he or she would be able to contribute to this vision. Additionally, he or she should ask the applicant to describe an instance where he or she worked successfully as a team member and how he or she was able to accomplish this.  Answers to these questions will help the manager decide if this is someone that will fit in with the rest of the team.

Of course, the only guaranteed way to know if a new hire will fit with the company culture is to put him or her in the job and try it. If your company uses a Temp-to-hire method of staffing, you’ll have an additional tool to help you in making a decision.