When looking for the most suitable candidate for a job position, recruiters consider various elements and characteristics before making the final decision. They must determine whether the job applicant has the right skills, capabilities, and experiences.
Thus, recruiters seek signs that indicate an individual is genuinely motivated to join the company, assimilate with its culture and perform the job. Otherwise, they might lack the passion for completing the tasks efficiently and picking up the most from onboarding.
That makes the hiring process demanding and tricky. HR professionals must consider various things before extending an official offer, including whether candidates will feel comfortable in their new team.
But their team members should also feel good about the new employee. The workplace can only function well if people support each other and are willing to collaborate and offer their help.
Because of that, recruiters must think about the company culture when posting a job ad and starting their candidate pursuit. Finding a brilliant job applicant who meets all the technical criteria is not enough.
An employee should also be a stellar company culture fit who doesn’t feel like a fish out of water in their work environment. Moreover, this aspect might be even more significant than hard skills because they can’t be taught.
But before jumping to what HR professionals and recruiters can use to determine whether someone is an excellent cultural fit, let’s first explain what that means.
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What is a Good Company Culture Fit?
You’ve likely heard it many times already. – Business leaders and managers often talk about the importance of finding a job applicant who is a stellar company culture fit.
Yet, many are unsure about what that means and whether it’s something companies can develop over time. One thing is sure – having employees who align with your company culture, values, goals, and missions can make or break your business.
Company culture fit is about sharing similar principles, objectives, behaviors, expectations, and attitudes with a company. Although they’re not living beings, businesses also have unique personalities, and you can define them using the same verbs you’d use to describe people.
Some companies are friendly, modern, and have a more laid-back approach to work. Others are highly professional, rigorous, and follow the ‘’get things done’’ philosophy.
Hence, a relaxed individual who prefers flexibility and friendly workplaces might not feel good about working in a stern company with traditional values.
Candidates who are an excellent cultural fit have values and expectations that align with the hiring company. They also have similar characteristics, sensibility, and work ethic.
Thanks to that, these job applicants are more likely to get along with their future coworkers and managers. That will improve team dynamics and make every task more manageable.
However, measuring whether a candidate fits a company’s core values can be challenging. Cultural fit metrics are difficult to determine, and HR professionals must use various methods to track them.
Because of that, companies often hire candidates with the right technical and soft skills who don’t fit the workplace culture. Even though mistakes happen, the approximate cost of a wrong hiring decision is at least 30 percent of the individual’s first-year expected earnings.
However, according to a CareerBuilder survey from 2017, 74 percent of employers hired a candidate who wasn’t the right fit for their company. Here’s what can go wrong if you choose someone unsuitable for your company culture.
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What Happens if You Hire an Employee Who is Not an Adequate Cultural Fit?
1. Financial Loss
A company invests money, time, and energy into hiring employees. HR professionals must create job ads, build a marketing strategy, use modern technology (e.g., ATS, CRM) to accelerate the process, conduct interviews, and determine the most suitable candidate.
That requires various resources and can cause companies to lose an investment. Hiring an incompatible employee results in revenue loss and could have further consequences.
For instance, if workers discover that their values and objectives go against their company's, they will likely feel uncomfortable in the workplace. In the worst case, they might quit their job, which is costly for every employer.
2. Poor Team Dynamics
Efficient collaboration depends on whether the teammates get along. They should understand the objectives and do their part in achieving them.
That requires stellar communication, patience, and similar approaches. If one team member doesn't agree with the goals or can't relate to their company's values and mission, that will affect their coworkers and the workflow.
Everyone should put effort toward the desired results and help the team thrive. For instance, if one employee's actions and beliefs undermine their colleagues' work, that will hinder team dynamics and business outcomes.
3. Lack of Results
Employees can hardly accomplish business goals and perform their tasks efficiently if they don't believe in what they do. They should be passionate about their assignments and understand their company's aspirations and strategies.
If employees are uncomfortable with the company culture and how their employer approaches their objectives, that will ultimately impact their results. People often put less effort into things they don't believe in and are not motivated to go the extra mile if it's for something that doesn't align with their values.
Moreover, they are less likely to brainstorm new solutions and contribute to innovative strategies when feeling an aversion to the company culture. As a result, employees should feel a connection with the business activities, values, and inclinations.
4. Employee Turnover
When a company culture doesn't resonate with the employees, they will likely struggle with a sense of belonging. Yet, that's necessary for job satisfaction and commitment.
If workers have contrasting aspirations and qualities, they will likely not integrate into the workplace and could feel like an outcast. Ultimately, that leads to employee turnover, which can be costly for the company.
Thus, whenever a worker quits their job, that affects employee morale and team efficiency. People often have to take on additional assignments to cover the gaps left after their coworkers resign.
5 Tips on How You can Determine Whether a Candidate is a Good Culture Fit?
Identifying whether an employee will fit the company culture is a challenging task that takes time, analytic skills, and technology. However, it’s not impossible.
Here are the top five ways to determine whether a candidate is a good culture fit.
1. Introduce Extra Selection Criteria
Resume evaluation alone is not enough to determine whether a candidate would integrate well into the workplace. In most cases, even a job application is insufficient to show if someone has the same core values, characteristics, and goals as your company.
After all, experience and education are only fractions of one’s life story, affinities, and objectives. Because of that, dive deeper beneath the surface and look for subtler compatibility signs.
One of the best ways to analyze personality and behavioral characteristics is to expand the selection criteria and reinforce personality profiling. Start by identifying your ideal candidate profile, as that will help you decide the questions and hypothetical situations that could give you more profound insights into whether a candidate could be a good match.
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2. Efficient Interview Planning
Avoid spontaneous interviews to determine whether a job applicant would fit well into the company culture. Think about the relevant questions ahead of time and identify what kinds of answers would reveal the compatibility.
For instance, if your company culture is vibrant, diverse, and forward-thinking, you’ll likely seek an open-minded candidate who appreciates inclusion and can get along with people from different backgrounds.
In that case, you should add questions that could help you pinpoint biases and unwillingness to collaborate with coworkers with different political or social stances. Consider placing your candidates into hypothetical situations and understanding how they would react, as that’s likely what they would do in real life.
3. Check Whether a Candidate Understands Your Company Culture, Values, and Objectives
Before deciding on your ideal candidate profile, understand what makes your company culture unique and what values, standards, and goals are non-negotiable. If you don’t know your business well, you won’t know who the right person for your workplace is.
Define your company’s personality, characteristics, and aspirations. Identify what kind of employees would fit nicely into that environment and compare those traits with your workforce.
Think about what it is that all your employees share that makes them successful and helps the business thrive. Those criteria will give you insights into what kinds of values and objectives a suitable job applicant has and whether these are something you can develop over time.
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4. Use Top-Notch Technology
Today, no company can drive successful recruitment and onboarding without advanced technology. HR tools are evolving, becoming inseparable from efficient hiring processes, making this aspect non-negotiable.
An Applicant Tracking Software (ATS) has various tools to help you identify whether a candidate would be a good match, but AI recommendations come first. That feature allows you to scan job descriptions and extract the core skills and requirements of the candidates.
However, an ATS also allows you to integrate personality tests into the platform via open API. Besides, an ATS that comes together with Customer Relationship Management software (CRM) like Manatal, is an excellent solution for staffing agencies, allowing them to communicate with their clients and ensure they’re on the same page.
5. Run Psychometric Tests
Psychometric tests are candidate assessment tools that help measure work behavior, cognitive ability, or personality. These tests can highlight whether a job applicant could excel at a specific job role, workplace, or company culture.
Although most companies use them online, you can also run psychometric assessments in person. They streamline the hiring process and pinpoint the best matches efficiently.
Many companies and staffing agencies use psychometrics tests to determine whether someone would fit the company culture. These tools provide higher accuracy than relying solely on interviews and resume evaluation. However, some recruiters use them in tandem with other recruitment tools and technologies (e.g., ATS, CRM).
But let’s dive deeper into what makes these tests a stellar way to assess whether a candidate is a good culture fit.
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What Makes Psychometric Tests an Efficient Method in Identifying Whether Someone Fits the Company Culture?
Psychometric tests are unique because they don’t only scratch the surface like most traditional assessments. These tests go beyond the usual job application elements (e.g., education, experience, technical skills) as they measure how candidates demonstrate specific abilities, knowledge, and skills.
But since this it’s an umbrella term, it’s crucial to clarify that various psychometric tests exist. For instance, you can use assessments that measure verbal reasoning, numerical reasoning, logical reasoning, situational judgment, critical thinking, or diagrammatic reasoning.
Moreover, you can run aptitude tests, personality questionnaires, or inductive reasoning. Regardless of the type, these assessments help connect the dots and understand how candidates use their experiences, skills, and competencies.
For instance, a job applicant might look like your ideal employee on paper but have core values and goals that contradict your company’s culture. Because of that, you must determine how their personality traits would affect their efficiency, how they would approach work, and whether they possess the necessary communication skills.
Hence, these tests provide a more well-rounded view of a candidate and highlight what kind of work environment they need to thrive and reach their full potential. Sometimes what they need and what doesn’t align with what a company can provide and strives to achieve.
Psychometric tests also show people’s logical processes, the capability to interpret and evaluate large data sets, and problem-solving skills. Besides, they can help understand the personality characteristics of a candidate and their integrity.
That gives insights into whether they could fit well into the team and enhance team dynamics. The popularity of psychometrics has also increased after the pandemic, as the talent market has become increasingly challenging.
The stakes are higher than before, and recruiters must do their best to make the proper steps, use all available resources, and choose the most suitable cultural fit. Otherwise, they could make a mistake that could jeopardize business continuity and project success.
Even though many HR professionals feel confident about their ability to identify the best match due to their vast experience, it’s better to use objective and measurable tools to back up the recruitment process. Thus, psychometric tests make the candidate selection fairer and more data-driven.
Using these assessments can help recruiters better understand how a job applicant would perform in the workplace and whether they could accomplish the desired objectives. But they also help reduce unconscious bias during the interview and diversify the team.
It is no wonder that 75 percent of Fortune 500 companies leverage psychometric testing in recruitment. These assessments help them understand whether a candidate is a good culture fit and gauge existing employees’ performance and abilities.
However, it’s recommended to use psychometric tests in combination with ATS and CRM systems to increase accuracy and efficiency. By using various tools and technologies, you reinforce your efforts and drive a more factual and inclusive recruitment process.
Enhance your hiring process and ensure you’re hiring candidates who are a good fit for your company culture by introducing psychometric tests to your ATS platform. Try Manatal’s AI Recruitment software and explore its numerous features by unlocking your 14-day Free Trial now.
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