How do I assess whether a candidate is a Cultural Fit?

Question:

I am a senior recruitment officer for an engineering and consulting firm. What I find most difficult, when interviewing candidates at times, is to assess not only whether the candidates have the right skills, experience and talents but also if they are the right fit for the organization culturally. Are there a set of best practices that you recommend that should be followed.

Answer:

That is a very good question and thank you for asking it! This demonstrates something that I have believed for a very long time, i.e. the rising wave of sensitivity among HR professionals towards the candidates ‘cultural fitness’ for the organization. For those to whom the word ‘organizational culture’ is something vague and only defined by the instinctive ‘feeling of the place’, let me define it first.

I would define ‘organizational culture’ as the amalgamation of the work ethic, values, beliefs and attitudes. These are evident visibly in “the way things go around in the office” and manifested invisibly in the general ‘vibe’ of the office. It is evident in everything, right from the office layout, the decision-making process, the companies’ rewarding and recognition policy for its employees, to how they celebrate a co-worker’s birthday!

A colleague of mine once put it very well by saying that “the people of a department exhibit sometimes the attitudes and personality traits of the manager, and this holds true on an organizational-level also – the CEO’s beliefs and traits are mirrored on the organizational culture.”

Organizational culture is like the personality of the organization!

Every organization has a culture, the difference lies only in how aware a company is of it and how well it articulates it. Your question tells me that you are to a certain extent aware that your organization has a certain culture that is unique, however it appears that this ‘culture’ is not well defined.

Define your Organization’s Personality

As I said earlier the organization mirrors the belief system of the companies’ founder or CEO. Start by looking at the very basic Vision and Mission statement of your company. Break down the mission and vision statement and understand it. Along with the organizations’ personality also try to assess and define the department’s culture. For example if you looking for a project manager for a department that focuses on employee empowerment and autonomy, you would not want a candidate who likes his/her inputs, opinions, and commitments solicited and carefully regarded.

Develop questions to Assess Cultural Fitness

Following the 4-steps below will minimize the guess work involved and add some order to this challenging question of “Is the candidate a cultural-fit?”

Step 1: Defining the Behaviors

This exercise correlates to the values of an organization. If your company already has Vision-Mission-Values (VMVs) then it’s simply a matter of defining behavioral characteristics that a person must possess to thrive in this work environment. Either way, the starting point would be to define the behavior that best represents the culture you have.

Step 2: Creating the Questions

Create interview questions that draw out the candidate’s past behaviors with respect to what you want. There are many resources that can help with preparing interview questions, and this really is a whole subject on its own. However a few suggestions that pertain to the example above would be:

1. How often do you hold meetings with your direct reports? What type of information do you share? What about coordination with other departments? If you were CEO – what would you change?
2. What type of information should the staff be aware of and what kind of information should they be shielded from? How does this apply to senior managers? What about company investors?
3. Tell me about a time where a CEO’s decision left you having to relay ‘bad’ news to employees. What did you do? What was the result? What do think about the decision in hindsight? How would you approach this situation in future?

Step 3: Taking note of the Answers

This is a crucial point and very often missed during the hiring process. It’s important that to write down the answers. Also because often as seasoned interviewers, we make the mistake of assuming that our interpretation of the answers is unilateral. But the fact is that with multiple stage interviews, a line manager’s interpretation of the answer may differ from yours. This is why it’s important to communicate the ‘right’ answer to ensure everyone is aligned, and the candidate can be asked “what about…” to ensure a complete picture is obtained.

Step 4: Having a Rating System

Having a rating system for the responses lends a quantitative aspect to a subjective process. It takes the guess work out of “what did you think of the candidate?” and further minimizes interpretation of the responses. Use a simple and uncomplicated 1 to 3 or 1 to 5 rating system, where 3 = ideal response, 2 = fair response, 1 = response not aligned. From personal experience, when the mean ratings for each set of questions/answers are calculated the final conclusion is generally equivocal between myself and the hiring manager. This means if the candidate scored high – we both agree that the candidate is a token fit. If a candidate scores average, then also we are in agreement.

At the end of the day – there’s nothing better than having a confident answer to “Is this person a cultural-fit?”