Hiring for Cultural Fit is a Two-​Way Street

BY Kathy Crosett
Featured image for “Hiring for Cultural Fit is a Two-​Way Street”

Sales candidates may now be more plentiful than they’ve been at any point in the past 10 years. But that doesn’t mean you should ignore cultural fit when you’re considering a candidate with a high-​flying resume. Despite the newly competitive job market, job applicants are carefully evaluating opportunities with respect to culture. And unless you’re prepared to deal with potential interpersonal problems on your team, you should ensure that your new rainmaker fits with your organization in a number of ways.

What Candidates and Recruiters Want

New data from Hinge Research shows that 57% of applicants for all open positions in an organization consider culture to be as important as pay. This research was conducted during the COVID-​19 outbreak and takes the most recent job seeker attitudes into account. Despite facing a period of extended unemployment, job applicants don’t want to make the wrong decision when it comes to accepting a position.

If you’re not thinking about culture and fit during your hiring process, you should be. Talent evaluators currently take the following aspects about a candidate into account during hiring decision:

  • Cultural fit 75%
  • Work history/​experience 73%
  • Technical skills 53%
  • Soft skills 50%
  • Interview success 38%

These details show that many hiring professionals understand the importance of cultural fit. Fit can be measured on a number of levels. You can reduce your hiring risk by giving your top candidates a sales skills assessment that measures cultural fit. The results from this kind of assessment will reveal if a candidate will succeed in your company. If your organization operates with a siloed structure and the candidate has been working for a startup with a flat hierarchy, you may encounter cultural fit problems. Similarly, if you run a competitive sales team and your candidate is coming from a cooperative and supportive environment, your new hire may not fit well with everyone else.

Cultural Fit is a Two-​Way Street

Positioning your organization properly for recruiting means updating your website with the latest materials about what it means to work for you. Younger candidates, especially, want to understand your position on social change. And if you treat employees properly, you can count on positive reports on review sites. The steps will draw the attention of quality candidates.

However, there’s no substitute for properly vetting your candidates. Giving a position to a friend or family member without proper screening shouldn’t happen. When you use a sales skills assessment test, you can remove emotion from your decision. You can also avoid hiring a person who interviews well, but can't actually sell. Now more than ever, hiring managers should use all the data available to them to bring the best candidate into the organization.


Share: