Recruiting For Your Corporate Culture

When recruiting for clients, we are often asked to find someone that fits their corporate culture. So how important is cultural fit in the recruitment process? It can be as important as sourcing candidates with the appropriate skills and experience. This article from Harvard Business Review discusses what happens when you get cultural fit wrong. The statistics suggest that this error can cost you between 50-60% of a person’s salary https://hbr.org/2015/07/recruiting-for-cultural-fit. This demonstrates it is clearly worth the effort in focusing on cultural fit with any new hire.

Hiring an employee that fits well within your organisation's culture adds to their job satisfaction. It will ensure they are a productive, happy member of your team. It will increase the time they are likely to stay in their role or with your organisation.

Aligning the values of an individual and an organisation can be an art. What we find helps is that a company has clearly defined their values. These values must not just be a list of buzz words or jargon. They must also be clearly visible in the actions of their staff and leaders. Having a defined set of values is an important part of your company identity whether you are a major Law firm or a start up!

These are our simple steps to follow to ensure your company is recruiting for cultural fit.

Clearly Define your Values :

Can you put your finger on what is it that your company values? Remember that these have to be displayed in action by your team. For example if you value excellence and recognition, then it is important to ensure your company is seen celebrating success.

Here is a comprehensive list of values.

Consider when you are selecting them that they are values that you see in your team’s behaviour on a daily basis. They can also be aspirational – how do you want your team to be behaving? Assigning around 5 values is good practice. Some potential values might be:

Your company values are not just a list, they are what you want to see in action the behaviours from your team.

Now that you have your values, they should be included on company literature. They should especially be included on job advertisements. They should be communicated in such a way that all of your staff are familiar with them. It is a good idea to ensure you call out or reward staff that are continuously demonstrating the values of your organisation. This helps reinforce their importance.

It is vital that the people in your hiring process from HR managers down to line managers understand your organisational values. They must also understand how they fit into your hiring process.

To demonstrate: you can recruit someone with all the skills and experience in the world, however, if they highly value autonomy and you highly value teamwork, then it is unlikely to be a good long term match.

Ideally, you want your employees to be living your organisational values. Having employees aligned to your values, helps them feel engaged with both your company and their role. This effectively means they become brand ambassadors for your organisation.

How do you determine a candidate’s values?

A behavioural interview can help you understand a candidate’s attitudes and values. It allows them to demonstrate past behaviour. Past behaviour tends to be a good indicator of future behaviour. Listen carefully for examples that the candidate provides that illustrate when they have put a value in action. Decide which values are the priority in this particular hire that you are wanting for your team.

Once the interview is concluded it can also be helpful to let a candidate see your culture in action. This might mean taking them on a short office tour after an interview, or introducing them to a key team member. It might be sharing with them some company marketing collateral or giving specific examples of how your team puts the values in action.

This helps give a candidate an inside view of your organisation and a feel for the culture. This will help them understand whether your organisation is the right fit for them.

As one of Melbourne’s leading specialist Legal recruiters we pride ourselves on our ability to help you recruit candidates that align with your corporate values.

If you are looking for a recruiter specialising in the Legal Industry in Melbourne, Australia, then get in touch with us here at Legal People. We are specialists in the Legal Industry and recruit Lawyers, Support staff and HR professionals. If you enjoyed reading this article, you can follow our Company Page on LinkedIn for regular updates. These are specific to the Melbourne Legal Industry and provide career advice for legal professionals.