{"id":15153,"date":"2018-11-21T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-11-21T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/identifi-global.eu.applyflow.com\/the-power-of-culture-and-cultural-fit-in-recruitment\/"},"modified":"2022-12-09T06:16:00","modified_gmt":"2022-12-09T06:16:00","slug":"the-power-of-culture-and-cultural-fit-in-recruitment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.identifiglobal.com\/news\/the-power-of-culture-and-cultural-fit-in-recruitment\/","title":{"rendered":"The power of culture and cultural fit in recruitment"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center\">\n\t<img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn-01.cms-eu-v2i.applyflow.com\/identifi-global\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/CulturalFit.jpg\" style=\"width: 600px; height: 399px\"><\/p>\n<div>\n\t&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div>\n\tCulture, culture, culture.<\/div>\n<div>\n\t&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div>\n\tWhile a company\u2019s outward-facing brand &#8211; the mission, vision and values &#8211; has traditionally taken up marketing\u2019s focus, businesses have been increasingly looking inwardly at their internal culture over the last decade.<\/div>\n<div>\n\t&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div>\n\tAnd not without reason. A great internal culture helps businesses attract and retain great talent &#8211; people want to work for companies that invest in them. Beyond that, it feeds into the overall brand equity of a business, improves productivity (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.google.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">one study<\/a> found happy employees are 20% more productive than unhappy ones), and adds value to companies if they decide to sell up.<\/div>\n<div>\n\t&nbsp;<\/div>\n<ul>\n<li>\n\t\t<strong>You may like:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.identifiglobal.com\/news\/personality-profiling-and-talent-management-getting-the-best-and-retaining-the-best\/40530\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Personality profiling and talent management: Getting the best and retaining the best<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div>\n\t&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div>\n\tIt\u2019s no surprise, then, to see businesses looking for new employees that are a great cultural fit, often over candidates with many years of experience under their belt. One way to ascertain cultural fit is through personality testing. We caught up with Heikki Karimaa, the Customer Executive for Criterion, our psychometric testing partner, to assess the value of cultural fit for new employees and businesses themselves, and to learn how psychometrics can unearth opportunities to fill roles with the right people.<\/div>\n<div>\n\t&nbsp;<\/div>\n<h2>\n\tIt starts with business culture<\/h2>\n<div>\n\t&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div>\n\tThe role of culture in recruitment consists of two key factors: one, the internal culture of each business, and two, recruiting the right candidates that will fit into this business. The better you understand the former, the more accurately you can do the latter.<\/div>\n<div>\n\t&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div>\n\tThe trouble is, as Heikki notes, many businesses don\u2019t have a grip on their culture at all. \u201cEvery company has a culture\u201d, he says. \u201cBut the question is whether the culture they believe they have is a reality.<\/div>\n<div>\n\t&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div>\n\t<img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/d3jh33bzyw1wep.cloudfront.net\/s3\/W1siZiIsIjIwMTgvMTEvMDIvMTMvNTEvMjUvODE3L2lkZW50aWZpIGdsb2JhbCBuZXcgam9iIHJvbGUucG5nIl1d\" style=\"width: 600px; height: 150px\"><\/div>\n<div>\n\t&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div>\n\t\u201cWhen a company starts out &#8211; in the startup phase when everyone\u2019s in the same room &#8211; culture is easy. But when it grows, you have to manage the culture. If you want it to help people perform, you need to know what the culture is all about. Companies are now waking up to the fact that the culture is more than just the values of the company, or the words on the website which no-one has read for the last six months.\u201d<\/div>\n<div>\n\t&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div>\n\tPsychometric testing can help to uncover the truth of a company culture in a way that questionnaires can\u2019t. Why? Because people don\u2019t say what they think. New York Times columnist Seth Stephens-Davidowitz demonstrates this brilliantly in his book, <em>Everybody Lies.<\/em><\/div>\n<div>\n\t&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div>\n\t<img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/d3jh33bzyw1wep.cloudfront.net\/s3\/W1siZiIsIjIwMTgvMTEvMDIvMTMvNDQvNDQvMTQvRXZlcnlib2R5IExpZXMgZXh0cmFjdC5KUEciXV0\" style=\"width: 600px; height: 280px\"><\/div>\n<div>\n\t&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div>\n\tPsychometric testing can cut through accepted wisdom and get to the heart of a company\u2019s culture. \u201cA helpful exercise is to ask people what they think the company culture is,\u201d Heikki says,&nbsp; \u201cthen assess them using the testing to see what they\u2019re like. Do people\u2019s personalities and abilities correlate with what the management says the culture should be and is?<\/div>\n<div>\n\t&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div>\n\t\u201cIf you\u2019re lucky you\u2019ll have a strong culture, and employees live and breathe it. If your stated values and culture don\u2019t marry with the people that work within it, you need to work hard to manage the culture properly.\u201d<\/div>\n<div>\n\t&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div>\n\tOne area of focus should be your recruitment process.<\/div>\n<div>\n\t&nbsp;<\/div>\n<h2>\n\tIntroducing culture into the recruitment process<\/h2>\n<div>\n\tTraditionally when recruiting, particularly in IT fields, businesses and hiring managers have been heavily focused on skills and experience. 20 years in a job, in our minds, demonstrates a deep knowledge and understanding of an industry, sector or specific role. The trouble today, when technology and IT move so quickly, is that the knowledge of 20 years ago is not the knowledge needed today. It\u2019s virtually impossible to find someone with all the skills and experiences you need.<\/div>\n<div>\n\t&nbsp;<\/div>\n<h4 style=\"text-align: center\">\n\t<strong>&#8220;Solely looking at experience as a sign of something valuable is a mistake.&#8221;<\/strong><\/h4>\n<div>\n\t&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div>\n\tIt\u2019s one of the reasons Heikki thinks experience is somewhat overrated in recruitment: \u201cFirstly, I should be clear that experience is a wonderful thing\u201d, he tells us. \u201cBut solely looking at experience as a sign of something valuable is a mistake. If you\u2019ve leveraged your experience, learnt and grown, of course that\u2019s invaluable. If you\u2019ve just \u2018been around\u2019, not so much.<\/div>\n<div>\n\t&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div>\n\t\u201cA lot of jobs where you have previously required experience don\u2019t really require experience to get them. The reason I\u2019m saying it\u2019s overrated is because it\u2019s overused. And the reason it\u2019s overused is because it\u2019s incredibly easy to assess. You can see from people\u2019s CVs how many years they worked somewhere.\u201d<\/div>\n<div>\n\t&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div>\n\t\u201cIf you\u2019ve been around and you\u2019ve consistently applied yourself, you are showcasing more than just experience, you\u2019re showcasing a mindset that a lot of people would find attractive. But that\u2019s a cultural thing &#8211; a mindset or soft skill &#8211; that goes beyond just experience.\u201d<\/div>\n<div>\n\t&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div>\n\tUnderstanding the right characters that will contribute to the workplace are essential.<\/div>\n<div>\n\t&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div>\n\t<a href=\"http:\/\/www.google.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">In our 2017 interview, Joe Luong,<\/a> co-founder of Crypta Labs &#8211; a security startup developing a quantum-based encryption to secure the Internet of Things &#8211; touched on the issue: \u201cI\u2019m not necessarily looking for the main expertise [of a candidate]. I\u2019m also looking for people who have got cultural values that are aligned with ours. That\u2019s incredibly important with a startup, because the goals keep shifting all the time &#8211; but the goals can also be met very quickly. Flexibility, adaptability and focus are key for me. In many ways it\u2019s contradictory because you need to be focused on the right thing, but you also need the ability to be a generalist, to understand the ecosystem and adapt to it.\u201d<\/div>\n<div>\n\t&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div>\n\tIn short, they need adaptable people, and people that can work together as a team to get the right results. This isn\u2019t people with every single answer, not people with the requisite experience or knowledge. What Joe was looking for were people with inquisitive minds, a flexibility and collaborative natures. And while technical knowledge is paramount in a space as new as quantum cryptography, it\u2019s the mindset and culture that were &#8211; and still are &#8211; important to him.<\/div>\n<div>\n\t&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div>\n\tA person could have all the technical knowledge and experience in the world, but without a collaborative or problem-solving mindset, they would be a bad fit.<\/div>\n<div>\n\t&nbsp;<\/div>\n<h2>\n\tWhat isn\u2019t cultural fit?<\/h2>\n<div>\n\t\u201cThere have been some critical statements towards recruiting on cultural fit,\u201d Heikki says, \u201cbut most are borne out of the common misconception that cultural fit means hiring people \u2018exactly like us\u2019. That\u2019s a misunderstanding of how cultural fit works. Cultural fit comes in understanding the key things that make your business tick &#8211; those values that make your business special. Then it means hiring people that meet these criteria. The people themselves, of course, can be completely different\u201d.<\/div>\n<div>\n\t&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div>\n\tIn many ways, this \u2018people like us\u2019 paradigm is more of an issue for the old ways of working. Psychologically, we are automatically drawn to people like us; we have bias in all of us. We marry people like us, we are friends with people like us, and, when we\u2019re in an interview situation, we warm to people like us. Psychometric testing puts safety measures in place, ensuring we don\u2019t simply look at carbon copies of existing employees to fill the roles, and instead look for the real best fit for the team and the business.<\/div>\n<div>\n\t&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div>\n\t\u201cI\u2019m not saying get rid of interviews at all\u201d, says Heikki. \u201cWhat I\u2019m saying is to use the results of tests to structure interviews and improve them depending on the candidate.<\/div>\n<div>\n\t&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div>\n\t\u201cPsychometrics aren\u2019t, and will never be, a replacement for an interview, of course, so that bias will still be there. As a tool, though, they allow interviewers to shape their interview, tailoring it to each individual to see how they will perform in the role itself.\u201d<\/div>\n<div>\n\t&nbsp;<\/div>\n<h2>\n\tIn summary<\/h2>\n<div>\n\tWork has changed significantly over the past two decades. Employees are asking more from their employers, and expect certain benefits from them that go beyond the quarterly bonus. As Hekki tells us: \u201cWe\u2019re not just working for the sake of work any more, it\u2019s part of our lives and we want to fulfil ourselves in work as well as out of it.<\/div>\n<div>\n\t&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div>\n\t\u201cCompanies are experiencing high competition and they need to be able to get the most out of their people. They\u2019re also becoming acutely aware of the cost of bad recruitment. The traditional strategy of getting bums on seats or hiring specific skill sets doesn\u2019t necessarily work for either party. In general, we are becoming more aware of just how much it matters to hire people that fit in the family.\u201d<\/div>\n<div>\n\t&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div>\n\tGoogle became famous for their employee-first approach to culture, providing perks that no other business would offer, investing heavily in incredible offices, creative spaces and whatever else you can think of. In some ways, this is almost now a clich\u00e9, with actual culture replaced by a couple of bean bags and a table tennis table.<\/div>\n<div>\n\t&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div>\n\tIn a fantastic LinkedIn rant, content creator Dan Kelsall spells out the issue: \u201cYou can&#8217;t cover up a shitty company culture by putting a fucking beanbag in the corner, or having a DJ on Friday afternoons.<\/div>\n<div>\n\t&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div>\n\t\u201cSticking a film on, on Valentine&#8217;s Day, so that you can plaster your social media with &#8216;Look how fun it is to work here&#8217; posts, doesn&#8217;t hide the fact that loads of your staff fall asleep at night to dreams of your management team being hit by a bus.\u201d<\/div>\n<div>\n\t&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div>\n\tAn authentic company culture can attract and retain talent, can foster a common belief and can accelerate business growth. On the flip side, if you hire on bias, if you fake a culture that doesn\u2019t exist, and if you bring in the wrong staff for the business, the results can be equally dramatic. Psychometrics can help determine who\u2019s right for you. Without it, you\u2019re playing roulette.<\/div>\n<div>\n\t&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div>\n\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.identifiglobal.com\/news\/case-study-from-candidate-to-client-neil-cook-head-of-it-at-autoglass\/40192\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/d3jh33bzyw1wep.cloudfront.net\/s3\/W1siZiIsIjIwMTgvMTAvMjkvMTUvNDcvMTUvNjkwL2lkZW50aWZpIGdsb2JhbCBOZWlsIENvb2sgY2FzZSBzdHVkeS5wbmciXV0\" style=\"width: 600px; height: 266px\"><\/a><\/div>\n<h2>\n\tShare this Article<\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; Culture, culture, culture. &nbsp; While a company\u2019s outward-facing brand &#8211; the mission, vision and values &#8211; has traditionally taken up marketing\u2019s focus, businesses have been increasingly looking inwardly at their internal culture over the last decade. &nbsp; And not without reason. A great internal culture helps businesses attract and retain great talent &#8211; people&hellip;&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.identifiglobal.com\/news\/the-power-of-culture-and-cultural-fit-in-recruitment\/\" class=\"\" rel=\"bookmark\">Read More &raquo;<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">The power of culture and cultural fit in recruitment<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14282,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-diversity-inclusion"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.identifiglobal.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.identifiglobal.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.identifiglobal.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.identifiglobal.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.identifiglobal.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15153"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.identifiglobal.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15153\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.identifiglobal.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/media\/14282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.identifiglobal.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.identifiglobal.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.identifiglobal.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}