Finding new talent to join your team can be a stressful business, and rightly so. There’s nothing more crucial to the success of your business than making sure you have the right people in your team.
When you are looking at potential candidates for a role, it’s usually obvious which candidates have the required technical competencies. What is a bit harder to determine, is who is the best ‘fit’ for your business.
Harvard Business Review defines 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”. For most of us, we look to see whether attributes like personality, working style and temperament would be a fit for our business.
This can be a subjective test, and in the past, we applied techniques like the ‘lift-test’ or ‘airport-test’. That is, if you were stuck with someone for a (sometimes small) space of time, who would you choose? The problem with this approach is that people who do well in these tests, are probably a lot like you. Maybe you share similar views, have the same values, or possibly a similar sense of humour. This isn’t always a bad thing but what it does lead to is a team of very similar people which doesn’t do much for diversity of thought.
Think about what a room of creatives could achieve with a few implementers thrown in the mix. Or, how could a group of detailed oriented people benefit from some big picture thinkers.
There’s a fair amount of research that backs this up because ultimately, diverse teams come up with better ideas, hence the opening statement – who do you want on your life raft?
If you’re unfortunate enough to be stuck in a life raft, waiting to be rescued (or possibly not!), you would want to be sitting in the boat with a bunch of people who think a bit differently – possibly someone with some medical nous, maybe a navigator, or even someone with survival skills.
When done right, selecting people who are the right fit for your business is crucial. They are more likely to have greater job satisfaction, more likely to remain in your business, and have better job performance.
It also makes sense to think about the current make-up of the people in your team and where there are gaps in terms of working styles, perspectives and strengths/weaknesses. And then consider those gaps when crafting the position description and commencing the recruitment search.
Aside from the required technical competencies, ultimately what you should be focussing on is compatibility – do they work well with others – and culture add – will they add to your company culture in a positive way.
Need help?
If you are looking for direction and assistance on unearthing the best talent for your business, get in touch with us. We’d love to chat.
The Decipher Team
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