Company culture is one of these phrases that is thrown around as important—and it is. But defining culture and then staffing your organization with employees who fit that environment is hard. There is plenty of data that shows candidates are attracted to the right company culture. But what is that? How can you find the best candidates to fit your company culture? We have answers.
What is Company Culture?
A company culture consists of the environment that your workers exist in. It includes belief systems and values, as well as the behaviors that meet employer expectations for what is required in the job. This culture—whatever it is—should permeate the organization from the line workers to the c-suite at the top of the food chain. What is company culture? It includes:
- How you communicate
- How decisions are made
- Organizational priorities
- Level of informality or formality
- Cooperation and teamwork versus competitiveness
- How you treat customers
- Attitudes toward the work itself
Now that you understand culture, how can you hire to fit whatever your culture is?
How to Hire for Culture Fit?
The best way to hire for culture fit is to create interview questions that figure out if the candidate will be comfortable in your current environment. Behavioral interviews seek to find out the answer to a question by sharing a story of the candidate’s past behavior. How does this work?
Say your company culture is extremely collaborative. You should create a question that ferrets out whether the candidate is good at working within a team environment. For example:
- “Can you describe a project where you collaborated with a team to get the job done?”
- “Can you tell us about your personal style of working?”
- “If you have your choice of working independently or working with a team, which do you prefer and why?
You can also ask about the previous employer. For example:
- “Were you comfortable with the culture at your last company? Why or why not?”
- “How would you describe the culture at your last environment?”
- “What would you change in the culture of your last job?”
Personality also matters when it comes to culture. While you don’t want all of the same types of people in your company, it is good to make sure you don’t have conflicting personalities working on the same team. For example, if your company is very formal, you’ll be able to tell that the more casual candidate may not be a good match. Some questions that will help you figure out personality without prying too much include:
- “Tell us about one of your favorite qualities in yourself that others sometimes don’t appreciate.”
- “What does your ideal workday look like?”
- “What types of situations create stress at work for you, and how do you handle it?”
- “What is your number one pet peeve at work?”
You can also use behavioral questions to determine how a candidate would act in a certain situation. Consider these questions:
- “Your team is presenting to the entire company, and the leader of the group calls out sick. What do you do?”
- “Do you prefer the chaos of change, or would you rather everything stay the same?” “Tell us why?”
- “If you won the lottery and had all of the money you’d ever need in your life, what would you do every day?”
All of these questions help you screen candidates for cultural fit. Gecko Hospitality is the expert in these and other questions designed to help you find top talent. Call on us to help find the right fit.
