The best candidates you interview for open positions at your company may not be the ones with the most impressive resumes or Ivy League degrees. For the right fit, a winning hire is the one with whom you feel an intangible connection, who combines skill and experience with true passion.
Cultural Alignment Is Key
Your company culture is made up of the work and values of every employee. Each new hire contributes to either sustaining or eroding that culture. By hiring people who understand and exemplify your organizational values, you help ensure the former is the norm.
- Translate your culture into behaviors, so you can identify them in job candidates. Paint a picture of your ideal applicant and how they would fill a particular need. Look at your current high-performing employees and observe how they act, solve problems and interact with others. Think back to when you hired them. What did they do to signal to you they were the right fit?
- Put these value-based behaviors in writing. This will help your recruiting team develop a firm grasp of the type of candidate you’re seeking.
Communicate Your Culture
Once you’ve defined your desired value-based characteristics, take a multimedia approach to communicate them to possible future employees.
- Optimize your careers page and social media to reach applicants. Don’t just list your values; tell compelling stories of how they come to life every day through your current workforce. Post interviews and videos of employees celebrating milestones, recognizing co-workers, and participating in community service projects. Start an interactive blog or use your existing one as an additional media channel.
- Use behavior-based interview questions. The basic premise is that past behaviors are indicators of future performance. Make every interview a conversation where it’s the candidate’s turn to tell their story. Get specific examples from their past work experience that show a history of acting with core values in mind.
Make it a Team Effort
How well an employee fits in with others at your company is 50 percent responsible for their success within their first six months on the job. And if they’re still struggling after that much time, their longevity under your corporate roof may be shaky.
- Involve multiple team members in the interview process. This means including not just managers to whom a new hire would report, but also those who would report to them and representatives of other departments with whom they would interact. Debrief with the full team afterward to ensure there’s a consensus. Everyone should feel charged up and excited about bringing the person on board.
Ready to find the best candidates for your business?
Frontline Source Group specializes in matching top talent with leading employers in IT, accounting and finance, CSR, engineering and oil and gas – with a proven track record of making the right match in terms of both skill set and culture. Contact us today to learn more.
