Hiring for Culture Fit vs. SkillsHow to Sniff Out “Problem Generators” Before They Ruin Your Team Culture

The Hire Talent | A Pre-employment Testing Company

Check us out! PreEmploymentAssessments.com

Wimbush & Associates, Inc. | A Talent Search Firm

Check us out! RecruitingSearchPartners.com

Wimbush & Associates, Inc.

About Fletcher Wimbush

That’s me!

Hiring for Company Culture Fit

1. Hire the RIGHT people(DUH) we all know that

2. Alternate View: the most common reason for a new hire failure is because the employee was not a CULTURAL fit

“46% of all new hires fail within the first 18 months.

89% of those failures are due to personality or attitude problems.”

- Leadership IQ survey of 20,000 hiring managers

How do we know who the right people are?

What Makes Up Company Culture and How is it Developed?

Are these points aligned with what you FEEL your company's culture is today or the way you want it to be tomorrow?

Company Values Vision Mission

Statement

Identify Culture Within Your Organization

What does company culture mean to you?

Define the qualities most important to you

Who in your organization already exhibits these qualities?

What needs to be done to get to where you want to be?

Careful not to make this too complicated

● narrow it down to the top 3 to 5 must have values ● then another 3 to 5 like-to-have values

1. Making things MEASURABLE is always better

2. Clearly defining these items is a way to make the AMBIGUOUS nature of values, behaviors and culture more MEASURABLE.

Now that we know what we’re looking for, we can aim at our targets!

What are some of your core

values?

Opposite behavior: Pointing the finger at others, blaming the customer, product, or processes doesn’t help the team achieve their goals.

We take personal responsibility for both our successes and our failures, it’s ok to fail as long as we are willing to admit it and humble enough to tell everyone about it.

Here are some of mine...

Opposite behavior: Partial truths, omissions of information, being misleading, cheating, lying to win and exaggeration don’t fly around here

We define honesty by telling the truth even if it’s painful or embarrassing.

Here are some of mine...

Opposite behavior: Combative, aggressive, and unempathic conflict hurts our team's culture.

We support our team members and managers even when we don’t agree with each other. Healthy conflict is good.

Here are some of mine...

How can we know if a candidate will fit into our company culture?

Now that we’ve defined our

values...

Rely on evidence, not on gut

Reflect on the information you’ve gathered in interviews and make sure to write down the HARD facts/reasons on why someone is a fit

or not

Who has hired someone they thought for sure was a fit, only to learn later that they were not?

DO Ask open-ended questions that elicit a genuine response.

“Do you prefer a laid back environment or a formal professional working environment?”

DON’T ask closed-ended questions that elicit a minimal response or yes/no answers.

■ “Do you enjoy a stuffy and uptight working environment?”

● No in-between or

“yes/no” only answers accepted.

Do Ask Follow-Up Questions

Why did you leave your first role,

second role, third role…..???

What happened?

Tell me more...

Which one did you like the least and

why? Why did you feel that way?

What did you like about the role and

company?

WHY, WHY, WHY, WHY???

Which role in your past did you like

the most, and why?

These two are key to gaining insights

Get really, really specific. Borderline annoying, even.

Most candidates will dodge follow-up questions until the cows come home if they are not truly great team players.

In other words...

REFERENCES.REFERENCES.

REFERENCES.

The System for Gathering

1.Who was/is your supervisor at ABC Company?

2.What was/is their title/role?

3.How would you rate THEIR performance on a Scale of 1-10?

4.Why do you give them the score you do?

5.What would it have taken to get them from a 9 to a 10?

a. Don’t let them off the hook with a weak, wishy-washy answer here. Make sure it is real and tangible. If not, WHY, WHY, WHY?

References:

The System for Gathering

1. Will so-and-so provide you a reference? a. Any answer other than “yes” is unacceptable and a red flag.b. “But, but, but..don’t companies have a policy against providing references?” c. Let’s think about this: Why do companies have policies against providing references?

i. Liability, slander, DRAMA...d. Hmmm that make sense, so if the person was loved dearly by all, including their

supervisor, why wouldn’t they want to brag about how great that person was? Wouldn’t you?

2. How would THEY rate YOUR performance on a Scale of 1-10? 3. Why do you think THEY would give you that score? 4. In their opinion, what would it have taken to get you from a 9 to a 10?

a. Don’t let them off the hook with weak, wishy-washy answer here. It better be real and tangible.

References:

Tying it Back to Culture

Ask candidate’s reference about their company culture and how the candidate contributed to and fit in with their culture

Tell reference a bit about your company and the role this candidate will be assuming.

Ask candidate’s reference if they think this person is a cultural fit

Your Own Write-Up

1. Draw a line down the middle of your paper and title it Cultural Core Values.

2. Put the evidence of cultural fits on the left side and evidence of non-fits on the right side

3. Have the other decision makers on your team do the same, then compare notes

Create an onboarding and cultural reinforcement program to make sure your company's core values

continue to build and stay on track

Thanks!

Q&A Contact us!

www.PreEmploymentAssessments.com

www.RecruitingSearchPartners.com

714-582-2730