The biggest mistake you could make in hiring is not taking into account the culture fit of your candidates. It’s so important that we believe it should be your number one priority. Why? Because everything else can be taught. What can’t be taught is whether or not your new hire will fit in with the work tribe you’ve already created.
What do I mean by culture fit? I don’t mean shying away from a strongly diverse team. That’s an asset. I don’t mean a company of uniformity. What I mean is a team who holds the same core values and collective behaviors.
For example, if your company has a core value of transparency, you must hire candidates who are radically truthful even when speaking to a disgruntled customer. If your company has a core value of timeliness, you must hire candidates who arrive on time and deliver on time. Maybe your company is a bit more flexible on transparency or arriving to an office at an exact time. Maybe your company values the end product more than anything else. If that’s the case then you must hire candidates who are self sufficient and know what they need to do to get the job done, even if that means working from home, from a quiet corner in the office or on the company rooftop if that’s what it takes.
If your office is super casual, enjoys working in teams and brainstorming together and has an easy going banter, then you definitely don’t want to hire an individual who’s going to be more comfortable wearing a suit, work from the isolation of their office and views banter as a distraction. And these fairly common mistakes can have a negative ripple effect on your entire team.
How do you make sure your hires fit your culture? Don’t hire alone. Introduce them to the culture. Some of the top companies do day long interview engagements where potential new hires meet with various teams and individuals throughout the day. This gives everyone the opportunity to gauge the fit.
If you’re working with a recruiting firm to locate candidates, make sure they’re taking into account personality and aptitude fits and not just lining up a list of skills. The wrong human with the right resume can lead to turnover and hiring cost waste.
One thing we always do at Satiated Artists is make sure clients and candidates take a Myers Briggs so we can make sure the personalities match. In addition we have both take a Kolbe Assessment so that we can make sure candidate’s natural way of working truly supports our clients.
Community is everything to a company, make sure you take yours into account with every business decision you make but especially with your personnel.
-Laura Gouin