How do you ensure candidates are a good fit for company values? ?? By: Dan the recruiter

Ensuring that candidates are a good fit for company values is crucial for building a cohesive and productive team that aligns with the organization's culture and mission. Here are some steps you can take to assess and evaluate values.

1. Define your core values clearly:

The principles and beliefs that guide how your organizations culture and decision-making process happen is crucial for transparency and trust. When core values are clearly defined and communicated, employees can align their personal values with those of the organization. This alignment creates a sense of shared purpose and reinforces the motto that employees are part of a community that values similar principles. Well-defined core values serve as a guiding compass for decision-making at all levels of the organization. When employees understand the values, they can trust that decisions made by leadership are consistent with those values. This consistency fosters trust in the decision-making process and ultimately helps remind us that our efforts have purpose.

1. Job Postings

When you include your values in job postings you will attract candidates that resonate with your culture. This can help set expectations from the beginning.

1. Behavioral Interview questionsDuring interviews, ask behavioral questions that probe how candidates have demonstrated company values in past work experiences. For example, if teamwork is a core value, you might ask, "Can you share an example of a time when you worked effectively as part of a team to achieve a goal?" Listening to the response is important for the next step and comparing them to the responses of your reference checks.
2. Reference Checks Contact the candidate's references and ask questions to see if the answers align with your companies values. How was his teamwork, work ethic, attendance, and other relevant traits? At times people will put there best references forward to avoid getting a bad review so as a recruiter to avoid the oldest trick in the book, getting duped by the candidates best friend pretending to be his supervisor, thoroughly check the companies records through HR and verifiable video interviews and paperwork to confirm who you are speaking with. This may sound counter productive but do your best to find someone at the company that will say at least one slightly off color remark about them. If it's only as bad as "he chews loud" then PHEW! If it's as bad as, "I can't believe that guy is still in the country after what he did" then YIKES!
3. Assessment ToolsThis one is my least favorite options because I know a solid amount of technicians who are bad test takers but can perform the actual hands on work better then the rest...... but with that being said as someone who is constantly playing devils advocate and having serious debates and discussions for a living attempting to stimulate critical thinking, challenge prevailing assumptions, and test the strength of arguments......consider using assessment tools, surveys, or personality tests that show value alignment. Maybe.

"Culture Fit" isn't just a buzz word anymore. There are way to many companies all trying to get the edge on talent and offering more money or better benefits for candidates and this means we all need to take the time to truly assess who we will be working with and spending time with on a day to day basis. Remember that candidates are interviewing the companies just as much now a days as the company is interviewing them. "Cultural fit" doesn't mean everyone should be the same; it means aligning with the core values and principles that drive the organization.