2013-15

NIKITA RAWAT

PGDMHR

Roll No. 29

Recruitment for skill Vs. Recruitment for Cultural Fit

Submitted to:

Mrs Kshitija Wason

Sub: Recruitment & Selection

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Table of Contents

S.No Content Page No.

1 Introduction 1 2 What experts say 4 3 When is cultural fit more

important? 6

4 When is skill more important?

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5 Context 7 6 How does an IT industry

test for skills? 7

7 How does an IT industry test for cultural fitment?

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8 Personal Observations 11 9 Avenues Ahead 13

10 References 15

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INTRODUCTION

What technical ability a given employer may be looking for of course varies depending on the job, but the

possession of a relatively scare or rare skill set – or the capacity to develop one – is highly valuable in the

market place.

Unfortunately, in the first case many employers often overestimate the transferability of talent (and spend too

much time focusing on cultural fit); while in the second case they underestimate how important the right

conditions are for talent cultivation (materially undervaluing fit).

What is cultural fit?

Cultural fit is the way in which an employee connects with the organisational culture. This

culture is formed from the values, vision, norms, working language, symbols, belief systems

and habits of staff, along with their tacit agreement to a set of acceptable behaviours. When

these elements are aligned, they create social cohesion, and a high level of social cohesion

builds strength in the organisation.

What is talent?

“Talent” in an employment context generally refers to one of two things:

1. Exceptional technical ability

2. High potential to develop exceptional technical ability

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CASE 1: If an employer wants to hire a world class actuary/computer programmer/project

manager/compensation consultant/financial analyst etc. the employer shouldn’t be looking at “cultural fit” so

much as it should be measuring skill transferability. The asset that the employer is paying for in this case –

technical ability – is likely to yield the needed value only if the technical ability the talent has is aligned with

the needs of the organization. As such, I would argue that an interview (and job posting) process that

accurately identifies and tests for the skills needed to be successful in a role are much more important than

cultural fit in cases where companies are hiring for a specific skill or experience.

CASE 2: Conversely, if an employer is hiring a candidate for his or her capacity to learn then cultural fit is

*much* more important. In this case, an employer is hiring a candidate largely because of his/her cultural

legacy. A candidate’s background (schooling/life experiences/work ethic etc.) makes him or her attractive

training prospect. As such, if a candidate isn’t a good cultural fit then the work environment will likely prove to

be sub-optimal for training purposes (leading to unrealized potential and a presumably failed hire).

If I’m recruiting for a role where the incumbent’s existing abilities will define his or her success in the role (and

any training is negligible or non-existent), then I am looking for skills and not fit.

Image Credit: <www.staffmills.com>

On the other hand, if much of what an incumbent does in his/her new role will be based around learning

internal processes then cultural fit matters a lot more in the selection process.

In the case of the former the incumbent defines the role, while in the case of the latter the incumbent is

stepping into a pre-defined space where his or her ability to succeed will be determined largely by the ability

to fit into what the employer does.

Not all work requires exceptional talent. Often a new incumbent just needs to fit in.

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Researching on what some of today’s top recruiting experts had to say:

“Our talented recruiters work very hard to ensure we find the right fit for our open positions. There

are plenty of people who could ‘do the job’, but we search to find the person who embodies our

values and demonstrates the exceptional technical abilities to make the position and the person most

successful.” – Tata Petty, AVP of Recruiting at Concentra.

“In our company, we recruit based on values first and then technical aptitude second…Maintaining

our culture is my number one stress factor, and here’s why: I care more about creating a great

company than I do a big company.” – Lanham Napier, President & CEO of Rackspace Hosting.

“The right cultural fit is an absolute must when hiring new employees. You must, of course, have

competencies for the right position, but we look for employees who…fit our culture at Lenovo. It’s

much easier to train for skills than for cultural fit.” – Gina Qiao, VP of Human Resources of Lenovo

“More than ever, we need…people who excel across disciplines and are capable of being more

generalists than specialists. They need to embody strong and diverse character attributes, not just

sets of functional skills. Mindset and work ethic are as critical as they’ve ever been.” – Amber

Naslund, co-author of The Now Revolution: 7 Shifts to make your business faster, smarter, and more

social.

“No matter how talented a manager you are, you can’t teach someone to have more integrity. That’s

something life teaches you. And…as a hiring manager, I can’t adopt you without these qualities [of

work ethic, humility, integrity and maturity]. ” – Garrett Miller, author of Hire on a WHIM: Four

qualities that make for great employees.

It is no surprise that 90% of respondents rated recruiting for cultural fit as very important to

essential. The fit between the employee and the organization is a crucial component of individual

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and organization success. Results of numerous research studies illustrate the importance of this

congruence between the values of the individual and the values and culture of the organization.

While most respondents rate recruiting for cultural fit as a very important to essential. Only 36% of

respondents indicated that their organizations always recruit for cultural fit. While a further 30%

indicated they often recruit for cultural fit, more than a third respondents indicated that they only

sometimes never recruit for cultural fit.

So far so good, but here comes the chills: Just over half of the respondents said that their

organization does not have a clearly defined corporate culture.

Defining and understanding a company’s own culture is the essential first step in order to be able to

assess cultural fit and quite frankly to measure it. Unfortunately, despite recognizing how important

this step is, only a third of the respondents currently measure cultural fit in their recruiting process.

This is most likely an outcome of not knowing their culture, which reflects a high degree of

inexperience.

Recent SmartBreif Interview with John Taft, CEO of RBC Wealth Management, in which he

focused solely on the importance of executives leading the culture of their companies:

“Culture is everything when it comes to responsible, long-term business success. Culture is what

exists before any given leader shows up, and it’s what exists after any given leader moves on.

Culture is in the DNA of an organization. It is not something that a leader necessarily goes out

and creates. A leader’s job is to discover, communicate and reinforce culture. If you don’t get

culture right, nothing else matters.”

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WHEN IS CULTURAL FIT MORE IMPORTANT

Cultural fit is more important in following cases:

When a candidate is a fresher with basic skills, then it is very important for him/her to

culturally fit in an organization. His skills can be honed by trainings conducted in

organization.

If in an organization, instead of an expert work, work involves frequent job rotations; then it

is a cultural fit is more important than skills.

When the company work culture is backed upon team work, then it’s very necessary that

the person you are hiring is a right fit with the culture.

“I once hired a woman who really didn’t have the right background or experience

for the job, but who I hit it off with during the interview,” says Rebecca Grossman-

Cohen, a marketing executive at News Corp.(NWS). “And because we got along so

well, I was able to train her easily, and she ended up doing great things for us.”

Source: BusinessWeek article

As observed by the above and below statements, employers say that culture is now a top most

priority not only for the recruiters but also for the new gen employees. It’s easy to rain person who

is culturally fit in an organization.

“These trends are being driven by millennials because they care about culture,”

says Dan Schawbel, author of Me: 2.0. “Research shows that millennials typically

stay at a job for about two years—and they have different priorities. They’d rather

have meaningful work over more pay, or work for a company that gives back or

cares about the environment. They want a culture that’s less hierarchical, more

flexible, and more understanding of difference, because millennials are the most

diverse generation.”

Source: BusinessWeek article

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WHEN IS SKILL MORE IMPORTANT

Recruitment for skills is more important in following cases:

When the job contains more risk like the job of a pilot or a shooter.

When it is a job for a very high post e.g. Commander in chief, CEO Etc.

Individual task or some temporary job.

In some cases, where experienced individuals are needed, then a critical element of the

selection process should be selecting individuals who can perform specific skills better. E.g.

ISRO Scientist

CONTEXT

I have taken IT industry for emphasizing the method used for recruiting.

HOW DOES AN IT INDUSTRY TEST FOR SKILLS

Technical expertise is being checked in regards to one of four areas mentioned below:

1. Functional skills

2. Domain Expertise

3. Tools and Technology

4. Industry Expertise

Let’s look at them one at a time.

1. Functional skills are what a candidate started to learn in school, and has continued to learn

on the job. This is where you must be wary of one year of experience repeated several

times. Looking for people who have continued their learning in some way.

2. Domain expertise is all about the product. Solution space is how well the candidate has

learned the internals of the product. Problem space is how well the candidate understands

the problem that the product solves.

3. Tools and technology expertise is simply how well the candidate knows your tools and

technology. Remember, this is the easiest expertise to learn.

4. Industry expertise is the implicit requirements that we expect people in our industry to

know. If you work in the IT industry for a while, you know about the latest researches.

Specially, whether you know about distributed systems as well as high-capacity, high-

performance and high-reliability systems.

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Skills tests are basically industry dependent tests. Various tests that are taken into consideration

while testing candidate’s skills are:

1. Use an outside company to verify tech skills - Testing companies like Prove It!, Brainbench,

Review Net Services, and eSkill Corporation tell you where candidates are strong and weak

and how they compare to others who take tests covering popular technology like .net,

Novell Netware and JAVA.

2. Borrow an IT expert: Companies may have a deep staff it can turn to for interview help, but

when it needs to hire in new niches, it reaches out to its network to find someone in a

different company in the same industry to help in the interview process.

3. Fake it. By asking IT questions and nod your head while listening to answers you don’t understand, Reed says. “However, that’s probably the least effective way to test someone’s skills.” Still, it can be done. Google “.net interview questions” and you’ll find plenty of things to ask a .net job candidate. Take time to research your interview questions, jot down notes about the correct answers and then listen for key phrases.

4. Hire someone who’s been there, done that. Choose a candidate who has a proven performance record of accomplishing the task you need done and you won’t have to worry so much about technical competency for a small or mid-size company implementation or build-out. Already existing members of the workforce can be a helpful way of deciding whether an individual have specific job work-relevant skills.

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HOW DOES AN IT INDUSTRY TEST FOR CULTURAL FITMENT

Fig 3: Methods Used

Source: http://www.ddiworld.com

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Fig 4: Effectiveness of methods

Source: http://www.ddiworld.com

This is an overview of all industries but in regards to IT if we see, the

methods mostly used for checking candidates if they are culturally fit or not

are:

1. Behavioural interview questions specifically targeting values such as

2. Questions other than behavioural specifically targeting values

3. Reference checking

4. Cultural fit questionnaires

5. Behaviour simulations

6. Informal meetings with colleagues/team members

7. Panel Interviews

8. Personality tests

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In fig 4 we can see the effectiveness of the above mentioned tests.

PERSONAL OBSERVATIONS

Also according to me, it’s a blend of both cultural fitness and requisite skills that are important while

recruiting and yes, Right skills are a part of the person who is culturally fit because culture in an

organization is a mix of technology, people, resources etc.

There is only one compelling reason for adopting a skill-based approach. That is to create a

competitive advantage, because it leads the organization to perform better. By moving to skill based

approach, organizations can create systems that proactively support the development of particular

kinds of competencies. In addition to helping organizations develop particular technical

competencies, the skill based approach can help an organization develop individuals who are capable

of functioning with particular management styles. This is particularly apparent in the case of

management styles that emphasize Total Quality management and Employee involvement. These

approaches require individuals to have skills that are above and beyond those that are normally

required in a command and control management approach. There are number of limitations and

potential pitfalls associated with using a skill based approach.

As per my readings and research, I would highlight cultural fit in terms of two fits; ‘organisation-

person fit’ and ‘job-person fit’. These fits are then broken into ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ categories. Hard fit

are things like levels of subject matter knowledge, specific skills and cognitive abilities. Soft fit

include personality traits, values and personal belief systems. When measured together they provide

a more accurate assessment of the candidates true fit. With this in mind I am not sure why some

organisations still focus on recruiting purely for skill set. I also think there is a middle layer to the two

Examples of Behavioural Interview questions Tell me about how you worked effectively under pressure with an example.

Have you ever made a mistake at work place? What happened and what did you do

about it?

Give an example of your goal and how you reached it.

Describe a team you worked on and your role in it.

Has there being a time you disagreed with someone? What did you do about it?

If you missed the deadline of your project, what you did?

You did a coding mistake that nobody knew at that stage, what will you do?

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fits, so let’s have a look at them together and the initial questions that we should be asking ourselves

for each one:

1. Organisational Fit:

Does the individual have aligned values and beliefs to the organisation?

Is their preferred modus operandi aligned with/to the organisation?

2. Team Fit:

Does the individual fit with the different styles and personalities within the team?

Are they a team player?

Do they value diversity of thinking?

Are they able to respectfully deal with conflicting points of view?

3. Role Fit:

Does the individual have the skills, competencies and capabilities to competently perform the

duties and responsibilities of the role i.e. can they do the job?

Do they have the right mind-set?

Finally, will they do the job?

The important question to ask now is…Do you need to change any aspect in your current

recruitment process to ensure that you attract and retain the ‘culturally right fit’ people for your

organisation, the team and the respective role? As managers we generally focus on filling roles

within our teams and the organisation with people who have demonstrated their skills and

knowledge in previous roles.

Research over the past decade proves that you still need to the right fit to the team and

organization. Candidates assimilate faster, which means they are able to actively contribute sooner,

resulting in greater job satisfaction for them and increase the likelihood of retention within the

organisation.

Skill fit is a subset of

cultural fit.

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Few more observations that I made:

1. The most expensive applicant is not always the most qualified one for the job.

2. Being “overqualified” for a job on paper doesn’t mean a candidate will actually be able to do

the work once he or she is in the role you’ve posted for (there are many different reasons for

this that I’d like to get into another time).

3. Hiring the “Rock Star” applicant (i.e. the ultra-experienced, high potential candidate with all

the right skills who also just-so-happens to be a cultural fit) is not always the best business

decision.

AVENUES AHEAD

It’s not that technical skills aren’t important, but they’re much easier to assess (that’s why attitude,

not skills, is the top predictor of a new hire’s success or failure). Virtually every job (from

neurosurgeon to engineer to cashier) has tests that can assess technical proficiency. But what those

tests don’t assess is attitude; whether a candidate is motivated to learn new skills, think

innovatively, cope with failure, assimilate feedback and coaching, collaborate with teammates, and

so forth.

Soft skills are the capabilities that attitude can enhance or undermine. For example, a newly hired

executive may have the intelligence, business experience and financial acumen to fit well in a new

role. But if that same executive has an authoritarian, hard-driving style, and they’re being hired into

a social culture where happiness and camaraderie are paramount, that combination is unlikely to

work. Additionally, many training programs have demonstrated success with increasing and

improving skills—especially on the technical side. But these same programs are notoriously weak

when it comes to creating attitudinal change. As Herb Kelleher, former Southwest Airlines CEO used

to say, “We can change skill levels through training, but we can’t change attitude.”

The fact that there are so many workers sitting out there unemployed, we can find the skills we

need. The lack of sharp wage increases in most job categories is further evidence of the abundant

supply of skills. Technical proficiency, once a guarantee of lifetime employment, is a commodity in

today’s job market. Attitude is what today’s companies are hiring for. And not just any attitude;

companies want attitudes that perfectly match their unique culture. Google and Apple are both

great companies, but their cultures are as different as night and day.

Factors that will contribute in future as a challenge to HR:

Social Media

HR professionals today might use social media websites, such as Facebook and LinkedIn, to get a

better sense of job candidates. Challenged to dig deeper, HR will need to use social media for the

organization's benefit in an extremely competitive job market for both candidates and hiring

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companies. HR professionals must be ready to grab the best talent before the competitor, and this

could mean beginning the dialog even before the candidate applies. Social media participants often

set their profile settings to private, so HR staff will need to develop in-depth knowledge of the social

media tools and online search engines to uncover the information they need.

Globalization

The Internet has opened up the job market, extending the talent pool to almost every nook of the

globe. In the 21st century, HR professionals recruit candidates from various countries who speak

different languages and practice customs that may be unlike those of the company's local

employees. This brings about changes to typical HR policies as the staff must address concerns such

as cultural and ethnic sensitivity. HR also will need to pay close attention to wage disparities

between local employees and their counterparts in other countries.

WHAT I WILL USE AS A YOUNG HR:

The current global recruitment landscape is changing. The global war for the best talent is real,talent

is geographically mobile and happy to move for the best job; talent is more demanding, not only in

pay but career progression and training and development; the experienced talent pool is shrinking in

volume; convergence of talent, as recruiters fighting in a smaller talent pool attract candidates

across different sectors; the graduate pool is scarily becoming “less skilled” as graduates come out of

universities with watered-down degrees, ill-preparing them for working life; talent is less loyal and

happy to switch companies every two years on average; competitors are getting smarter in mapping

out talent pools and attracting your staff away; and recruitment agencies are failing to be creative in

attracting unique talent to their databases, hence perpetuating “recruitment chess” of the same

talent across companies.

The growth of the power of the Internet and communication is unstoppable. The “Twitter

revolutions” in the Middle East show that people are grasping and using technology to communicate

their views, much to their anger of the elite.

Social media and networks are on fire. Whatever you look at — Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn,

Twitter — the growth stats and usage is phenomenal. People talking, 24/7.

So, keeping in view all the mentioned concerns and upcoming tools, I will be using a technique which

will test the employees on cultural fitment which will include skill test too. The ratio of both may

vary as per the job position requirement but yes, both are essential to make an organization a

success. By employing social media as a tool, we can have a better idea about the candidate who’ll a

potential employee for the organization. Basically my focus will recruitment for attitude of the

candidate as it remains the same over time and it also determines the level of satisfaction an

employee have in the organization.

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REFERENCES

http://rorytrotter.com

http://hbr.org/

http://www.ddiworld.com

http://www.workforce.com/

http://www.businesstimes.com.sg/

http://www.cipd.co.uk/hr-resources/research

http://www.pwc.com/gx/en/managing-tomorrows-people