Recruiting for Culture Fit
An organizations culture is its core values.
So, when recruiting, it’s important for organizations not to ignore or forget about their culture. An organizations success is primarily due to the team they build. The “right” team will not only advance your organizations long-term goals, but they will also amplify your culture, improve employee experience and retention over time. Therefore, regardless of experience and career history, any candidate being considered for a role within your organization should believe in your core values.
Understanding Culture Fit and How It’s Evaluated
Culture fit is when recruiters seek out candidates who align with your organizations culture and core values.
According to a survey by Cubiks Netherlands, 84% of recruiters said that culture has become a prominent factor in the selection process.
When evaluating for culture fit, recruiters must remember that they should not conflate their personal and professional lives nor focus on specific behaviors and experiences. Instead, recruiters should focus on your organizations core values and defining them in a way that they’re intentional and inclusive– making “evaluating culture fit” a valuable process.
Recruiting Strategies to Find the “Right” Candidate
Now that you understand culture fit and how to evaluate it, it is your job as a recruiter to find candidates that align with your organizations culture. Here are 3 recruiting strategies to find the right candidate:
1. Analyze and “Sharpen” your Organizations Brand/Reputation: Does your brand/reputation reflect your organizations core values? If it doesn’t, sharpen your marketing skills by investing in recruitment marketing to attract top talent and effectively promote your culture and unique core values. Two ways to grow your brand/reputation are via social media and career sites as candidates tend to browse and seek employer reviews to see what “life” is like inside organizations. Remember, you will naturally attract candidates who are aligned with your organizations culture once your brand reflects your core values. So, stop competing with your competitors – the candidate who is a perfect match for them might be a terrible match for you.
2. Be “Intentional” with your Interview Questions: Many times, healthcare organizations have said that finding the “perfect fit” to fill an open position can be overwhelming, and a job on its own. One huge mistake organizations make with culture fit is trying to gauge whether a candidate is a good match over a casual lunch or in an unstructured interview. When assessing culture fit, remember to be strategic and intentional about the interview questions you ask. Try asking behavior-based questions that are tied in to your values. For example, if you’re a healthcare organization and one of your core values is around “not hiding mistakes, but being transparent, talking through them and learning from them” – a behavior, value-based question could be “Describe a time in your healthcare career where you made a mistake – how did you overcome this?” The overall goal when interviewing is to ask the right questions – so, don’t forget to be prepared, plan your questions beforehand, and dig deeper by asking follow-up questions.
3. When Recruiting Involve Everyone (Recruiters, Executives, and Employees): One way to communicate your organizations culture to candidates is through current employees and executives. Most likely, these candidates have already conducted a search on your company – so, setting up cross-functional interviews/meetings with current employees and executives will confirm some of their findings, allow them to gain a deeper sense of the organizations culture, and more insight to determine if they are a good fit for the organization or not.
Long-Term Employee Retention
Understanding culture fit and how it ties into recruiting allows us to build a workplace focused on long-term employee retention. Once you identify candidates by evaluating culture fit, they are most likely to stay with your company for years to come. Remember, culture fit is a reflection of your core values, and should be defined in a way that its intentional and inclusive.
At MASC Medical, understanding and evaluating culture fit is a priority when helping healthcare organizations find the right candidate. Connect with one of our medical recruiters to see how MASC Medical can help you.
MASC Medical is a nationwide leader in healthcare staffing, and physician recruiting. Our expertise, resources, relationships, and proven strategies have allowed us to develop a proactive, and efficient approach when serving clients nationwide – allow us to find the right physician, physician assistant, nurse practitioner or dentist for your healthcare organization today. In fact, the search for the right candidate is risk and worry free – we’re paid on results!