Hire for Culture Growth, Not Culture Fit

(The following is an excerpt from Michael Kerr’s latest book, Hire, Inspire, and Fuel Their Fire: How to Recruit, Onboard, and Train New Employees to Live Your Culture Out Loud)

“Shaping your culture is more than half done when you hire your team.”
Jessica Herrin, Founder, Stella & Dot

Okay, you’ve defined what culture means to you, clarified what your ideal culture is, and are telling the world about your culture to give candidates a solid understanding of what it is and whether or not they’ll be a fit.

Now comes the most challenging part – selecting employees who you know are going to help sustain and, better still, strengthen your culture in the long run. As the old hiring adage goes, “When you hire the right person, you can do no wrong. When you hire the wrong person, you can do no right.”

Culture match or culture growth?

A word of caution though – be careful how you define a “culture match” for your workplace. The challenge with this concept is there is a natural human tendency to want to hire people who remind us of, well, us. I mean, who wouldn’t want another you?

The problem is that you can end up with a team or entire company full of clones – people who, unfortunately for you, all think the same. As the saying goes, “If you have two employees who think alike, one of them is redundant.”

With this in mind, a better approach is to hire people who fit your cultural expectations but also add something new that will help your culture grow and evolve. Indeed, the design company IDEO has gone this very route, replacing the concept of “culture match” with a focus on “culture improvement” when hiring.

Bill Strickland, the CEO and President of the non-profit center Manchester Bidwell Corporation puts it this way, “We hire employees knowing that they aren’t simply buying into our story, they are changing that story a little by adding their own. We encourage that. We insist upon it.”

As Patty McCord, the former human resources manager of Netflix says, “Hire now, for the team you wish to have in the future.”

Prescreen before the interview

Lee Cockerell, a former Operations VP for Walt Disney World Resort, says that the behind-the-scenes motto of Disney is, “The happiest place on earth…or else.” Translation: Yes, Disney is all about the fun, but they also have extremely high expectations of their employees, expectations that are communicated even before potential employees apply for a job. People hoping to land a job with Disney must answer 132 questions online and watch a 20-minute film before they even get an application! This helps ensure that Disney hires people with the right attitude and that new employees begin their job understanding the company’s high expectations.

Other companies that receive massive amounts of applications create a stage between the application process and the interview process. This eliminates the not-terribly-serious candidates and whittles down the numbers to more manageable amounts. If this applies to you, consider holding an interim “education session” where applicants must appear in person for a pre-interview presentation.

To help prescreen the sometimes-overwhelming number of applicants the company receives, Mindvalley now requires potential candidates to submit a YouTube application. This increasingly popular strategy not only filters out applicants with marginal interest, it also helps the company gauge the personality, creativity, and communication skills of potential new hires. The video cover letter requires candidates to explain who they are as a person, how their own mission aligns with Mindvalley’s mission, and why they feel they are the best person for the job.

Set up candidates for success

Let’s face it, some of the brightest, most passionate people in the world can sometimes bomb during a job interview. So why not do everything you can to set them up for success before the interview so you stand a better chance of seeing them in their best – and most authentic – light?

The award-winning Finnish company Vincit goes out of their way to make sure candidates are as prepared as possible for their job interview. As part of their online application, Vincit offers candidates a drop-down menu where they can select the location of their first meeting:

• in a café
• over lunch
• over a walk
• at a Vincit office

And no, this isn’t a trick question – they simply want to make sure candidates feel as relaxed as possible so they can put their best foot forward.

Vincit also offers candidates a series of videos to help them prepare for the interview. Yes, they actually offer training in how to interview! They allow candidates to select (based on a series of videos) who they wish to be interviewed by, and they even send candidates the interview questions beforehand! Engineering recruits will often arrive with a spreadsheet listing their answers, which suits Vincit just fine as it saves time and reduces the candidate’s anxiety… allowing the interviewers to see them at their best.

If a candidate doesn’t pass the interviews (which include a culture interview, an interview with their future peers, and an interview with the CEO), they encourage those who showed potential to try again later, offering advice on what the person needs to work on to ensure success the next time around.

Michael Kerr is a Canadian Hall of Fame Speaker, highly in-demand international keynote speaker, and the creator of the Culture Leadership Online Academy. Michael is also the author of 8 books, including:  The Humor Advantage: Why Some Businesses Are Laughing All the Way to the Bank;  Hire, Inspire, and Fuel Their Fire; and The Jerk-Free Workplace: How You Can Take the Lead to Create a Happier, More Inspiring Workplace.  www.MikeKerr.com