Hiring IT Talent for Cultural Fit

Just because you’ve found a candidate who has all the education, experience, and skills you’re looking for doesn’t mean the recruitment process is over. That’s because it’s just as important to consider a candidate in terms of their cultural fit – their ability to reflect and thrive within the culture of your company. Here are just a few ways that you will improve your staffing strategies significantly if you make cultural fit a central consideration.

Skills can be Learned, Culture Cannot

A candidate who is a perfect fit for your culture but doesn’t have all the skills you require is still an exciting find. That’s because new skills can, and eventually must be learned, while the characteristics that make them a great cultural fit are largely unchangeable.

Skills are a Temporary Consideration

In the ever-evolving world of IT, the skills that are important today may be irrelevant in five years. That’s why hiring only based on skills is a shortsighted approach that is likely to cause you problems. If you focus more on cultural fit, you will fill your organization with people that you know can make a meaningful contribution now, and long into the future.

Cultural Fit is Essential for Productivity and Efficiency

If an employee is not a good fit for your culture, they drag down everyone around them. They compromise the ability of their co-workers to be their best because they introduce an element of friction into your workforce. Over time, these problems only get worse, putting you at risk of staff turnover, unfinished projects, and stifled innovation.

Cultural Fit is Necessary for Retention

The primary reason that people leave their jobs is that they are simply not happy with them. And a huge part of being happy with your job is working for a company that shares your goals and values. For that reason, cultural fit and employee retention are intimately linked. If you search for people who are a good fit for your company, it is far more likely that they will be enthusiastic, impactful employees over the long term.

Cultural Fit is Crucial for Innovation

Innovation happens when teams are able to be more than just the sum of their parts. And that can only happened when team members share largely the same goals, ambitions, and operating procedures. We already mentioned how disruptive a bad cultural fit can be. But the opposite is true as well. When the fit is especially good, your workforce is truly optimized.

Now you know how important cultural fit is, but how do you effectively vet candidates for their fit during the hiring process? It’s tricky, but not impossible. Learn more about this essential strategy by consulting with INSPYR Solutions.