(This is Part 2 of a two-part series about hiring for cultural fit. To read Part 1, visit: (https://www.ptechpartners.com/2021/11/16/hiring-for-cultural-fit-the-benefits/)
In the last blog, we discussed how hiring for cultural fit could help you identify committed, engaged individuals, who will help your organization grow. Candidates who share your organization’s professional beliefs and goals, will assimilate well within your workplace and quickly become an asset.
Understanding your company’s cultural needs and hiring for it, can be a blessing.
But, if you get it wrong, hiring for cultural fit is a curse.
There are some significant pitfalls to giving excessive emphasis to cultural fitness when reviewing candidates. It’s important to constantly evaluate the metrics by which a candidate is deemed to “fit” with the organizational culture and the circumstances in which a candidate’s skill-set will be prized over their cultural fitness. Otherwise, cultural fitness can become a drawback. It can create a stagnant workplace where individuals are hired for this personality or personal background, rather than their skills. You could wind up with underqualified employees who limit your organization’s potential for cultural evolution.
What are the perils of hiring for culture fit?
It is good to have likable colleagues, and you should always be on the watch for any personality red flags when interviewing candidates. That being said, you need to remember that you are hiring an employee, not looking to make a new best friend. If you hire on personality match alone, you might reject strong candidates with the right skillset based on an incompatible personality.
Understanding your company culture is a trickier proposition than most people realize. In organizations with strong workplace cultures, it is easier to identify a common culture because they will have been codified early and enforced uniformly throughout the company.
But in smaller, more ad hoc organizations, identifying a core thread of values or value systems that permeate the business will be harder. A recent study revealed that over 80% of hiring managers agree that a ‘cultural fit’ is essential in candidates but less than 50% of executives have a clear idea of what their company’s culture actually is.
When you attempt to hire for culture fit without fully understanding the cultural needs of your organization, you might end up accidentally hiring employees who will take you further from your goals rather than closer to them.
When you only hire people you feel a personal connection with, you run the risk of eliminating diversity from your organization. Both diversity of thought and diversity of background. If you only look for people who share your personal beliefs, interests, or culture, you might end up discriminating against skilled candidates from different backgrounds.
For example, a personal connection between a candidate and the hiring manager—hailing from the same town or attending the same university—can be mistaken for an alignment between the candidate and the company.
If the idea of a good candidate is someone who fits in well with the existing work culture, you stymie any chances of evolution within the culture. You might end up with a homogenous workspace, full of employees who get along with each other but don’t do much to improve on any existing deficiencies and continue to peddle the status quo.
To overcome workplace biases, you need a regular injection of fresh ideas. Turnover isn’t just about personnel change. It also brings a chan