Why hiring for cultural fit does not work!

At several HRTech events I have been asked if softfactors also supports hiring for cultural fit. What is cultural fit in the first place? Some food for thoughts!

Experts tell us that “cultural fit” encompasses values and behaviors that “contribute to the unique social and psychological environment of an organization” and matching the candidate with that.

I strongly believe that a cultural fit in recruiting does not make sense. Why? Two reasons:

Firstly, every employee works in a micro cosmos of a team, with colleauges, a manager and a specific job and function. Therefore, overall cultural fit to an organization is not precise enough to determine if a future employee does fit to the specific role or area in the organization, or far from determining if he/she will get along with future colleagues.

Secondly, working in today’s complex environment requires “whole brain thinking” not just an analytical or procedural approach. This iterative thinking and thinking from across different angles and diversity brings out the full potential in teams. Study shows, that the more complex the task, the more diverse the thinking must be in order to solve the problem.

As Sue-Ellen Watts, states in her Blog at What’s next HR: When you choose to hire for cultural fit you reduce the diversity in your business. Diversity creates different thinking, broader problem solving and higher levels of innovation. Why would we want less of this in our business? Particularly in this day and age where these are critical to our sustainability.

And of course, when we speak of diversity, we don’t mean skin color or country of origin. We mean different styles in solving problems, different communication styles and ways to interact.

We at softfactors always measure the candidate’s fit to the job, the hiring manager (and of course to the team). And this not just by self-assessed personality questionnaires but real assessments: tests, that tell us how the new candidate is hard wired and if he/she not only fits the company culture but compliments the company, team and job with the required skills and competencies needed.

Hire for attitude or hire for 360 fit gives better results than just hiring for cultural fit.

Regards from our sunny terrasse in Zurich!

Reto