Your company values are the core tenets that direct culture and priorities. Hiring based on these values means you will have employees who integrate faster, are more productive on teams and are more likely to stick around. It's just a matter of looking for the right traits and hiring for values.
It’s time to go beyond “company fit” — which notably can lead to hiring people who look and sound like the majority of company, potentially hurting goals related to diversity and inclusion. Hiring for matching values, rather than corporate fit, lets you find employees who mirror the way you think about your brand and your core concerns. Some companies have taken a collective approval approach to hiring in order to ensure that an employee gets a thorough examination by multiple hiring managers before being onboarded.
So what are the best methods for ensuring you get qualified staff who embody your company’s mandates and values? Here are three steps I take when hiring to find the right people for my team.
1. Live your values.
Most employers have some kind of mission statement or values, but often they don’t become integrated with the culture or work environment in a meaningful way. Before you start hiring for words on the wall, take a step back and make sure that you’re really living your values in the day-to-day.
Some hints to whether you’ve got it right are if your current employees know what the values are and what they mean. If most employees can’t name all your values, or can list them but can’t tell you what behaviors align with them, then your values aren’t part of their daily work experience. This could mean they haven’t been effectively communicated, or it could mean you need to make changes to the values so they better reflect your culture.
Find ways to humanize your values so they make sense to current and potential employees. If one of your values is “collaboration,” then talk about what that means in practice. How can people embody that value? How does the company encourage it? What processes or practices are in place to support collaboration and idea-sharing?
2. Integrate values into attraction, sourcing and screening.
Now that your values are truly integrated into the day-to-day and you have a clear understanding of what they mean in actions and outcomes, make sure that those values inform and feed into your attraction strategy and tactics. What is your company voice? Candidates are drawn to specific types of roles and companies, so your job ad, sourcing approach and screening should all reflect your values.
If a current employee read a job ad for your company, would it feel authentic to their experience working for you? Send some sample ads out and ask for feedback — you might be surprised by what you find. If your values are accurately reflected at every stage of attraction, sourcing and screening, then the candidates you interview are much more likely to be a good match for those values.
3. Ask the right questions.
Now you have your shortlist to interview, are you asking questions that get to the heart of your company values? Have some questions that you consistently ask that reflect one or more of the values, and know what keywords or behaviors you’re looking for.
Ask behavioral and situational questions that will show how a candidate reacts in certain situations to understand their approach to problem-solving, teamwork, learning, collaboration or other important areas. Past behavior is a great predictor for future behavior, so how your candidate reacted in the past is a good way to find out if they share your values. Be consistent in what and how you ask so you can accurately compare different candidates.
Remember, values should align throughout the hiring and onboarding process.
On a final note, make sure your values are also integrated into the offer and onboarding process. Think about your candidate’s experience. It should feel smooth and consistent, from initial contact, whether that’s a job ad or direct outreach, through to their first day at work.
Use the tips above to integrate values into every stage of the employee life cycle. Hiring for values is a powerful approach to creating a company with a happy, inclusive workforce where everyone feels unified in working toward organizational goals.
