Do you find it difficult to hire great people? Maybe you know something is wrong, but you don't know what. Maybe you don't feel "chemistry" with the candidate. You can hire for cultural fit, and eliminate that icky feeling or the lack of chemistry. You need to understand your corporate culture, and your culture as a hiring manager. You can then develop great interview questions and auditions to reflect your culture to see if a candidate will fit. Learn how to think about interview questions to use cultural fit to your advantage, instead of discarding candidates for that uneasy feeling.

1. Hiring for Cultural Fit
Johanna Rothman
@johannarothman
www.jrothman.com
jr@jrothman.com
781-641-4046

2. © 2015 Johanna Rothman
Cultural Fit Frustrations
“No chemistry”
“Not such a great fit”
Candidate doesn’t want the
offer—and it’s not a salary
issue
What is your culture?
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What Culture Is
How people treat each
other
What people can discuss
What you reward
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If YouWant Cultural Fit…
Develop your awareness of
your culture
Develop questions to
detect fit for culture
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Examples of Culture Based Around
Team-building in One Organization
Manager1
Team-builds with rope courses, laser tag, other physical activities
Loses people over a few years, but the people who are left are a team
Manager2
Believes constructive debate builds teams
Part of a new hire’s audition is to to engage in a debate
CEO
Believes that corporate parties/activities build the management team
Managers must attend summer picnic, holiday party, lead the United Way charity drive
Their children and spouses must attend the parties also
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“Corporate” Culture Is Incomplete
We may talk about
“corporate culture”
Each manager puts his/her
stamp on top of corporate
culture
Culture is local
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WhenYou Hire…
Understand your group’s
culture and how it fits into
the organization
Check out candidate’s
culture preferences
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How to UnderstandYour Culture
1. Determine the boundaries
with context-free
questions
2. Understand the specifics of
the role with contextual
questions
3. Determine the manager’s
cultural stamp
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Context-Free Questions
What does success look like?
What problems does this
position solve?
What problems does this
position create?
Why are these results desirable?
What is the position worth to
you?
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Contextual Questions:Technical Skills
Technical skills
Functional skills
Domain expertise
Industry expertise
Technology/tools expertise
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Contextual Questions: Qualities,
Preferences, Non-technical Skills
Ability to manage large groups of people (or small groups)
Ability consider several ideas, not jump at the first one
Analytical abilities
Negotiation skills
How people-oriented vs. task-oriented (especially for managers
or project managers)
Sales ability (for not-specifically sales folks)
…
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Perform a Job Analysis
As you analyze the job, make sure you ask these kinds of questions:
1. “Who will this person work with on a regular basis? On an irregular basis?”
2. “Tell me about the level or responsibility you want this person to take”
3. “What is this position worth to you?”
4. “Tell me about the strategic/tactical/operational parts of this job”
5. “What will this person do/what deliverables do you expect on a daily, weekly, monthly, yearly
basis?”
6. “Tell me how you can see this person working on a daily basis. … Tell me about the
interactions you expect to have with this person”
7. What’s important for this person to already know to succeed in this position
8. “Tell me about the way you describe your group to other people. Is there something I should
know about, something that will attract a certain kind of person?”
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Two Primary Qualities of Culture
Adaptability
Perseverance, aka Grit
These are part of the growth
mindset
Caution: if you don’t have the
growth mindset, don’t hire
for it (typical in a control
culture)
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Develop Candidate Interview
Questions for Cultural Fit
Adaptability
Perseverance:
Courage,Achievement, Follow-
through on long-term goals,
Resilience, Release vs. perfection
Success
Challenges
Environment
Offer
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Types of Questions
Closed questions establish the facts
Behavior-description questions:“Tell me about a time
when…”
Auditions
Hypothetical questions:“What would you do if…”
Meta-questions:“What else should I ask you?”
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Adaptability
“Tell me about a time you
were surprised.What
happened?”
"Tell me about a time when
you did not have the
conditions you would've
liked for your project.What
did you do?"
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Carol Dweck,
Mindset

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Growth Mindset
Tell me about a time you had to learn something new.What was
it? How did you do it?
Give me an example of a time you had to take courageous action.
Tell me about a time you wanted something that seemed far off.
What did you do?
Tell me about a time when it felt as if you failed.What did you do?
Tell me how you know something is sufficient for release.
Have you ever wanted to postpone release? Why?
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Success
“Tell me about a recent
success.What caused it?”
You might hear these things:
“Supportive environment”
“Risk-taking”
“Ability to make my own
decisions”
“Decisions by consensus”
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Challenges
“Tell me about a recent
challenge.What caused it?
What did you do?”
Candidates will explain
problems — especially
where the culture
interfered
Example:VP and process
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Environment
“Tell me about your environment
now. Does it contribute to you
success? (If not, ask about
environments in the past.)”
Listen to what makes people
successful
I’ve met many senior managers
who believe they need to be
the star technical person.
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Offer
“What’s important to you to see in an
offer?”
Offers are much more than salary
Other perks, including vacation time
Electronic toys/tools
Labs, other capital equipment
Ability to use funds for books,
conferences, training, etc. for staff
Senior managers: ability to hire,
ability to manage raises and bonuses
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It’s Not Luck
You know it’s not luck, it’s
skill
Do the job analysis
Prepare behavior-
description questions
Use an audition
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Let’s Stay inTouch
Pragmatic Manager:
www.jrothman.com/pragmaticmanager
Hiring Technical People blog: www.jrothman.com/blog/htp
Book: Hiring Geeks That Fit
Please link with me on LinkedIn
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