Research shows that employers consider culture fit to be a key selection
criteria when choosing staff. Yes, a BullHorn
Reach study revealed that 57% of recruiters would strongly factor in a
candidate’s personality fit with the hiring company in their selection
decision.
Since culture fit is such an overwhelmingly important selection criteria in
the recruitment process, it is crucial that employees not only apply for a job
which they have a good skill fit for, but they should ensure that these jobs are
within companies that they have a good culture/personality fit with, that is if
they are to maximize their chances of being hired.
In truth, you will do more than increase you chances of being hired, you will
increase the likelihood of you enjoying and excelling in your role. Yes, a survey by Leadership IQ
suggests that the top reason that employees fail is because they cannot accept
and implement feedback from their manager, colleagues and customers, with 23%
failing because they can’t manage the emotions of others and 15% fail because
they have the wrong temperament for the job. And remarkably, a
mere 15% of people fail due to a lack of technical skills.
All this points to the fact that it is crucial that you apply to companies
where you have a good personality/culture fit in order to maximize your chances
of being selected and of succeeding in the role long term. There are four key
steps to the process of finding companies and roles that suit your personality
and these are listed below.
1.Assess your own personality
You can of course achieve this by doing an informal self examination, but I
would recommend supplementing this with a formal personality profile or career
personality test. There are many of these kind of tests on the market, some are
free and some need to be paid for. You can find a good list of these tests on
. These tests will give you a good idea of your career preferences,
your behavioural tendencies and the kind of roles and environments that you are
most suited to.
2.Assess the company’s personality
Before you apply for jobs, you should do a quick assessment of the
personality of the employer to see if you are a good fit. Many of the best
employers make this assessment easy for you to do, as they publish extensive
details on their career section about their values, management style, company
culture and way of doing business. You can also gather information about a
company’s culture by networking with current and ex-employees on social networks
or by simply following the prospective employer’s social feeds. You can also use
a site like www. which
provides detailed company culture reviews of 1000′s of companies.
3. Assess the department and manager’s personality
Subcultures (that are very distinct from the overall company culture) can
exist within specific departments within a company and so it is important that
you assess the culture of the team you are potentially joining and that of the
manager. You can assess this culture using many of the same mechanisms above
which include reviewing the job description (which may give some clues to
culture), by networking with current or previous employees on social media and
by assessing the team culture during the interview process. Make sure you to ask
the hiring manager questions about management style and team and company
culture.
Good luck with your job hunt and finding a role and company which suits your
personality.