Recognizing the cultural fit during the hiring process

Organization Culture consists of shared values, beliefs, and assumptions about how people should behave and interact, how decisions must be made, and work activities carried out.

It is imperative that the recruiter internalizes his or her own organizational culture and weave this understanding while hiring an applicant. The recruiter needs to evaluate if the applicant will fit into the organizational culture and thrive in that workplace. It is a necessary alignment that has to be probed and validated during the hiring process.

An employee gives the best to an organization when the employee is in a comfort zone. The employee feels secure that the organization will not only take care of the employee’s interests but enjoys working with superiors, peers and subordinates. The comfort that the employee enjoys normally results in longer tenure with the organization.

Can culture fit lead to discrimination against applicants and a lack of diversity?

It’s important to understand that hiring for culture fit doesn’t mean hiring people who are all the same. On the contrary, a richly diverse workforce should reflect the values and attributes that make up organizational culture.

Suppose an organization requires its employees to work as a closely-knit team. It can be resourceful enough to recruit applicants from diverse sources who have effectively worked in teams in corporates, the army, NGOs or even professionals who actively pursue a team sport as a hobby.

Here are some commonplace questions suggested by Harvard Business Review (2015) that will help assess culture fit in most instances in an interview:

What type of culture do you thrive? (Does the response reflect your organizational culture?)

What values are you drawn to, and what’s your ideal workplace?

Why do you want to work here?

How would you describe our culture based on what you’ve seen? Is this something that works for you?

What best practices would you bring with you from another organization? Do you see yourself being able to implement these best practices in our environment?

Tell me about when you worked with/for an organization where you felt you were not a strong culture fit. Why was it a bad fit?