Putting your best foot forward in the interview process is a no-brainer these days. Employing offices are tidied up, while both parties are polite, professional, and sporting a game face. When you ask, “What’s your greatest weakness?” candidates respond, “ I work too hard.” In truth, these surface-level questions don’t help you evaluate things like culture fit and the long-term potential of a candidate. Today, you will learn how to find a candidate that fits your culture!
Find the Cultural Fit
After a successful first interview, companies like Spotify takes candidates out of the office and into their bar. That’s right! This non-traditional setting allows candidates to mix and mingle with potential co-workers where the atmosphere is more relaxed. Alcohol isn’t required for this exercise but this situation allows managers to evaluate how the candidates would interact with their peers. As a result, Spotify is able to hire better cultural fits has seen better retention of hired candidates after shifting their interview process to this.
Southwest prides itself on hiring funny and outgoing people. Their first interview is a group interview in order to test cultural fit right off the bat. It doesn’t matter what industry is, the group test works extremely well for vetting candidates in customer service, sales, or any position that needs to be interacting well with others.
A Unique Process
Some companies are creative from the get-go even avoiding job postings completely. In order to apply to Zappos, you must create a profile on Zappos’ social media site, including a video cover letter designed to showcase their true colors. Pizza Hut gives each candidate a 140-second opportunity to showcase their skills. This isn’t always the best thing to do for EVERY role, but Pizza Hut and Zappos both understand the type of person that they want will succeed in their interview process.
If you are running the hiring process, be creative!
Disrupt the Flow
Disrupting the conversation can be an effective method to get past a candidate that has mentally prepared responses to common interview questions. Off-the-wall questions for shock value is not recommended, but purposeful questions are best. For example, if you want to know if they are an active learner, ask about the most recent book that they’ve read. When looking for personality fit, questions such as “one time my sense of humor helped me was…” can surprise a candidate but answer an important question regarding cultural fit.
If your firm asks the same interview questions asked by every other company, you will likely get the same answers candidates have become comfortable giving. Interrupting the norm is the way to answer the deeper questions you have about a candidate.
Why You?
Do you have a “join us” section on your website? If not, get on that stat! For those of you who have this section already, does it do little more than list open positions, or does it tell a compelling story of your culture and your value prop? Even though listing open positions seems logical, focusing more on what you offer to someone and their career will attract more quality candidates. Sharing testimonials from recent hires always come across well. Another idea is to have your marketing department create a video with clips from around the office to showcase what your company truly offers and what it’s like to work there.
With these tips, you are more than on your way to finding qualified candidates that will fit your culture!
About Us
With over 90 years of Logistics experience, Top Talent is a recognized leader in Talent Acquisition for Logistics, Transportation, and Supply Chain., Let us put our team to work for you. To learn more about successful strategies for getting those impact players and game-changers on your team, reach out to us today.
– Michael Monson
Top Talent
President and CEO
Email: mike@toptalentllc.net