And that\u2019s just the financial impact. When a new hire walks out, not only are you a staff member down, the remaining people in your team may suffer from low morale, your projects could be derailed and you can lose confidence in your decision making \u2013 how can you be sure you won\u2019t make the same mistake again?<\/p>\n
Why is hiring for cultural fit so hard?<\/h2>\n
\u2018Finding candidates with the right cultural fit for your team\u2019 was the number one hiring challenge identified by employers in Australia and New Zealand, according to recent\u00a0Hudson research.2<\/sup><\/p>\n When I talk to hiring managers about why they see this as a challenge, a common misconception is that you need to be great at \u2018reading\u2019 people in interviews to judge cultural fit.<\/p>\n This isn\u2019t helped by the large number of articles that circulate on platforms like LinkedIn from people with their own personal \u2018expert\u2019 tips on how they identify top performers in interviews, such as the \u2018sell me this pen\u2019 But I think a significant part of the problem is that hiring managers aren\u2019t clear about the culture that candidates need to fit into.<\/p>\n Then there\u2019s the unconscious bias<\/a> that comes into play. It doesn\u2019t take much for a manager to be won over by the wrong candidate. Maybe they seemed eager, which the manager interpreted as motivated to do the job. Or maybe they reminded the manager of themself. (Research has found that hiring managers often tall into the trap of hiring those who could be their new best buddy.3<\/sup>)<\/p>\n So how do you overcome unconscious bias<\/a> and identify candidates who will be a good cultural fit?<\/p>\n The\u00a0Harvard Business Review<\/i>\u00a0describes cultural fit as the likelihood that someone will reflect and\/or be able to adapt to the core beliefs, attitudes, and behaviours that make up your organisation.4<\/sup>In all likelihood, different people in your organisation will have different views about what they think the culture is. You may also find that your organisational culture and team culture are quite different.There are lots of ways you can develop a better definition of your culture \u2013 from as simple as exploring it in a team meeting, to surveys, assessments and talent analytics from data across the organisation.<\/p>\n For example, one of Hudson\u2019s clients had their employees take our behavioural assessment questionnaire. Results showed that everyone there shared common traits like extroversion and collaboration. Thus when this company looks at hiring for cultural fit, these are the key behavioural traits they look for.<\/p>\n Another way you can understand your organisational culture is by looking at the way employees are recognised and rewarded. For example, in a performance-driven culture, those with a high drive to succeed will rise up the ranks more quickly.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n As organisations realise the value of hiring for cultural fit, questions geared to gauge a candidate\u2019s tendencies and motivation are becoming increasingly common during interviews.Most of these questions relate to asking a candidate what they would do in certain situations, and explore what they like and why. An example could be: What has been your most preferred reward and recognition initiative across the places you\u2019ve worked in the last five years?While this doesn\u2019t overcome unconscious bias completely, it provides an opportunity to delve more into your candidate\u2019s motivations, behaviours and values, rather than their experience only.<\/p>\n At Hudson, we use our Performance Driver Model as part of our interview processes:<\/p>\n While these are good places to start, without the right tools and expertise, hiring managers will still be without objective data to determine whether a candidate will be a cultural match. Assessment tools are designed to tap into a candidate\u2019s motivation, preferences and tendencies to compare to the organisation\u2019s culture. It\u2019s not uncommon for hiring managers to say that they had a gut feeling that a candidate wasn\u2019t suitable, and then the assessment shows why.For example, it\u2019s possible to have two candidates who are both sociable, but who manifest this in different ways. One candidate may like to chat with their colleagues every morning as they work while the other may prefer to work hard, then go out with their colleagues after their work is done. The different working preferences and motivation of the two candidates will likely have different impacts on the team and the organisation.Typically organisations have relied on psychological assessments<\/a> at the end of the hiring process, but there is a missed opportunity in not using this information a lot earlier on.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n Ideally, you should evaluate candidates for cultural fit throughout the process, from the phone screen, through to assessment, interviews and the reference check.<\/p>\n When you know your work culture and what you are looking for, hiring is no longer a guessing game. As the adage goes, knowledge is power. Or in this case, knowledge of cultural fit means more power to you and your team.<\/p>\n Hiring for cultural fit: why managers find it so hard and get it wrong so often I\u2019m sure we can all think of a time we\u2019ve worked with someone who wasn\u2019t a good cultural fit. For hiring managers, you might even think of a specific person who you hired with high hopes, who turned out…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3826,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[98],"class_list":["post-1489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hiring","tag-cultural-fit"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/au.hudson.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/au.hudson.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/au.hudson.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/au.hudson.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/au.hudson.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1489"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/au.hudson.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1489\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6053,"href":"https:\/\/au.hudson.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1489\/revisions\/6053"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/au.hudson.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/media\/3826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/au.hudson.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/au.hudson.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/au.hudson.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\ninterview test made famous by\u00a0The Wolf of Wall Street<\/i>.<\/p>\n\n
![\"Hudson](\"https:\/\/cdn-01.cms-ap-v2i.applyflow.com\/hudson-main-site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/hudson_performance_driver_model_build.png\" "\\"Hudson")
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\n2<\/sup> Talent Insights, Hudson research, Nov 2016
\n3<\/sup> https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com.au\/managers-hire-people-who-remind-them-of-themselves-2014-5?r=US&IR=T<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"