Estimated Reading Time: 1 min 30 secs

‘Cultural fit’ is a term that is very common these days, especially among human resource professionals. For many it’s a key trait to look for when recruiting for a vacant position as a wrong hire can be extremely costly for an organisation. On the flip side, hiring a candidate that fits the organisation’s culture not only prevents the before mentioned costs, it increases job satisfaction (which increases retention) and improves performance. So how do we make sure we’re recruiting for a cultural fit?

Before we answer that questions it’s important to define ‘cultural fit’ not as hiring people that all look the same or think the same or have the same background – that’s simply a lack of diversity. Earlier this year, Erika Andersen wrote an article (Is ‘Cultural Fit’ Just A New Way To Discriminate?) for Forbes. She describes, most accurately, cultural fit as a person having similar core values as the core values to which an organization identify themselves with.

Katie Bouton in her HBR article gives a perfect example: “For example, if collaboration is a key organizational value, people who have a genuine, authentic belief in the value of collaborative work will be a stronger culture fit than those who are more comfortable as individual contributors. This doesn’t mean that only people who come from one particular background or have one particular set of experiences are collaborative. A savvy hiring manager knows that a deep-rooted belief in collaboration could just as easily be found in a candidate with a corporate background as a candidate who has worked in the nonprofit sector or a candidate who has spent most of her career in the military.”