How Company Culture Impacts Hiring

Recruiting Candidates that Fit the Work Environment

Aug 6, 2007 Deborah S. Hildebrand

Company culture dictates acceptable and unacceptable behavior within a company. Understanding how this impacts recruitment is vital to hiring the candidates that fit.

By definition a company’s culture is what helps define the norms for accepted behavior within an organization and is the foundation for the values that employees are expected to emulate.

The problem is when an organization only has a feeling of what their culture and values are, but they really haven’t defined them. Without fully understanding what drives the climate of the business and how, it is very difficult to know who will fit best in that organizational environment.

Think about this: if a company is a small yet growing concern that is driven by trend-setting, forward-thinking, extremely creative people using the latest in cutting edge technology and the employees are constantly reinventing themselves and their product, then the company culture might be seen as very entrepreneurial with a high-energy level.

Contrast this with a modest yet successful organization with an established customer base and product line that doesn’t change. Employees get the job done, but are not required or even expected to suggest changes or rock the status quo.

Someone in the first organization might find the second one boring. While someone in the second company might be overwhelmed in the first environment.

This is why it is so important to identify the company culture and value system so that candidates and recruiters alike can determine who will fit and succeed within the dynamics of an organization.

For job seekers

For employees this means understanding the type of work environment that the organization offers and determining if this fits with their personal style and career goals.

Work environments vary greatly. They may be flexible or structured, reward creativity or promote the status quo, communicate from the top down or through the grapevine. They may be results-driven or relationship-driven, supportive of change or not, or any number of other environments.

A business may be headed by a controlling individual who wants to call all the shots as in a small family-run operation where the owner has put a lot of his own sweat and tears into the organization and doesn’t want to relinquish control. Or this same business could be owned and operated by an open-minded entrepreneur who hopes to find like minded employees who will help grow the business.

Job seekers need to determine what type of work environment makes them the most comfortable and seek out organizations that fit their preference. One of the best ways to do this is to ask questions during the interview process such as

• Is there a formal vision, values and mission program?
• Are there handouts about the programs available?
• How would the recruiter describe the company culture?
• What are the personal qualities that would help make someone successful in this organization?

For recruiters

Anyone who interviews candidates for employment opportunities has their own style and favorite interview questions. However, dissecting a candidate’s responses to determine what they may indicate about the candidate is an equally important step.

Seek out open-ended behavior-based interview questions that help determine someone’s fit with the company culture by allowing the candidate to describe her experiences as well as helping to highlight the type of business environment where she has done her best work.

Part of this process should be to define – not an “ideal” response – but rather a hoped-for response. For instance, if the request is to describe a time when the candidate made a suggestion to management as well as the end result, the response may indicate that the candidate never took this action or if they did, their idea was embraced and acted upon, embraced and not acted upon, or not embraced at all. Each of these results could say a lot about the individual and the company culture.

Finally, reference and background checks that include questions about the type of environment and culture where the candidate previously worked will go a long way in determining if there is a culture fit.

The copyright of the article How Company Culture Impacts Hiring in Career Advice is owned by Deborah S. Hildebrand. Permission to republish How Company Culture Impacts Hiring in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

Company Culture