4 Ways to Hire Employees Who Mesh With Your Company Culture

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Creating the perfect culture within your company and then hiring for that culture is nothing if not tough. People mess it up as much as they get it right. That said, you should try these easy fixes if you want to hire more people who will thrive at your organization:

1. Watch Your Tone in Your Job Ads

Your job ad is the first thing a prospective applicant sees. That means it should reflect your company to a T. If your company is casual and relaxed, then a stiffly worded list of responsibilities is going to attract the wrong kind of person.

“With a properly worded job description, you’ll benefit from having fewer applicants to consider and more high-quality applicants in the pipeline, allowing you to spend less time on the hiring process and more time on your day-to-day operations.” – Wade Foster, cofounder and CEO at Zapier 

Foster couldn’t have said it any better. When you put out any job ad, you should use a tone that reflects the company in your writing. Whether your company is a little more laid back or buttoned up, you should convey that fact in your ad. This will give job seekers a better understanding of what your company is looking for.

Once you do attract a potential employee, make sure you reply in a timely manner. Nothing deters talent more than a slow response – or, worse, no response at all. You may even want to include your typical response time in your automated response to the candidate’s application or on a FAQ page on your career site.

2. Really Pay Attention During the Interview Process

This is a simple piece of advice, but you need to be vigilant. It can be easy to overlook an obvious character flaw because of candidate’s flashy resume or impressive diploma.

Ask behavioral and situational questions to see how your candidates would really react in difficult situations. When you ask behavioral and situational questions, carefully think about how the potential employee answers. Do they exhibit certain emotions when they describe a simple problem in the workplace? How would they handle that same event in your office? Evaluate everything.

FlowersYou may also want to consider using personality assessments that gauge what candidates’ work values actually are. These assessments are difficult to game, and therefore, they offer a great way to get an accurate picture of your candidate.

3. Build a Diverse Talent Pool

A culturally and intellectually diverse workforce can really set you apart from your competition. According to Katherine W. Phillips, a senior vice dean at Columbia Business School, “The key to understanding the positive influence of diversity is the concept of informational diversity. When people are brought together to solve problems in groups, they bring different information, opinions, and perspectives.”

In addition to better problem-solving, diversity also gives you insight into various pockets of the labor market you may not have even thought about.

While many businesses already have college recruiting programs in place, it’s time to start looking outside of this comfort zone. If we want to bring intellectual diversity to an organization, we should start by targeting trade schools, technical institutes, and even professional communities like Behance, Quora, and GitHub.

4. Look for Positivity in Potential Employees

Attitude is everything. Attitude can make or break your workplace. If the majority of your office is positive, then the majority of your workplace is happy. “Happy” doesn’t necessarily mean that every day is sunshine and unicorns, but it does mean you have a workforce that can keep a positive attitude throughout even the toughest of times.

It’s important to look for highly intelligent, sharp-witted individuals, but is it not equally important to look for positive, uplifting employees who can keep the company’s spirits high?

Fortunately, it’s pretty easy to spot positivity in an interviewee. Beware those applicants who talk as if everyone else is at fault or make it clear that their absolutely hated their previous job.

SeashellWork hard to cultivate positivity in your current workforce and allow new applicants to see this when they walk in the door. Form an applicant “welcome wagon” that can be on alert for new interviewees when they walk in the door!

Now that you have an idea of how to hire quality employees that will fit in with your workplace culture, it’s time to put yourself to the test. Review your onboarding process, make a few tweaks, and get to sourcing!

A version of this article originally appeared on the Click Boarding blog.

By Christine Marino