How to uncover cultural misfits in the interview and selection process using the best hiring strategies. How to use pre-employment assessments and references to get the best cultural team fit.

1. Hiring for Culture Fit
vs. Skills
How to Sniff Out “Problem Generators” Before
They Ruin Your Team Culture

2. The Hire Talent | A Pre-employment Testing Company
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Wimbush & Associates, Inc. | A Talent Search Firm
Check us out! RecruitingSearchPartners.com
Wimbush & Associates, Inc.

3. About Fletcher Wimbush
That’s me!

4. Hiring for
Company Culture Fit
1. Hire the RIGHT people
(DUH) we all know that
1. Alternate View: the most common
reason for a new hire failure is
because the employee was not a
CULTURAL fit
“46% of all new hires fail within the first
18 months.
89% of those failures are due to
personality or attitude problems.”
- Leadership IQ survey of 20,000 hiring managers
How do we know who the right people are?

5. What Makes Up Company Culture
and How is it Developed?
Are these points aligned with what you FEEL your company's culture is today or
the way you want it to be tomorrow?
Company
Values
Vision
Mission
Statement

6. Identify Culture Within Your Organization
What does company culture mean to
you?
Define the qualities most important to
you
Who in your organization already
exhibits these qualities?
What needs to be done to get to where
you want to be?

7. Careful not to make this too complicated
● narrow it down to the top 3 to 5 must have values
● then another 3 to 5 like-to-have values
1. Making things MEASURABLE is always better
1. Clearly defining these items is a way to make the
AMBIGUOUS nature of values, behaviors and culture
more MEASURABLE.

8. Now that we know what
we’re looking for, we
can aim at our targets!
What are some of
your core values?

9. Opposite behavior: Pointing the finger at
others, blaming the customer, product, or
processes doesn’t help the team achieve
their goals.
We take personal responsibility
for both our successes and our
failures, it’s ok to fail as long as
we are willing to admit it and
humble enough to tell everyone
about it.
Here are some of mine...

10. Opposite behavior: Partial truths,
omissions of information, being misleading,
cheating, lying to win and exaggeration
don’t fly around here
We define honesty by telling
the truth even if it’s painful or
embarrassing.
Here are some of mine...

11. Opposite behavior: Combative,
aggressive, and unempathic conflict hurts
our team's culture.
We support our team members
and managers even when we
don’t agree with each other.
Healthy conflict is good.
Here are some of mine...

12. Now that
we’ve defined our
values...

13. Rely on
evidence,
not on gut
Reflect on the information you’ve gathered in
interviews and make sure to write down the HARD
facts/reasons on why someone is a fit or not
Who has hired someone they thought for sure was a
fit, only to learn later that they were not?

14. DO
Ask open-ended questions that elicit a
genuine response.
“Do you prefer a laid back
environment or a formal
professional working
environment?”
DON’T
ask closed-ended questions that elicit a
minimal response or yes/no answers.
■ “Do you enjoy a stuffy and
uptight working environment?”
● No in-between or
“yes/no” only answers
accepted.

15. Do
Ask Follow-Up Questions
Why did you leave
your first role,
second role, third
role…..???
What happened?
Tell me more...
Which one did you
like the least and
why?
Why did you feel
that way?
What did you like
about the role and
company?
WHY, WHY, WHY,
WHY???
Which role in your
past did you like
the most, and why?
These two are key to gaining
insights

16. Get really, really specific. Borderline
annoying, even.
Most candidates will dodge follow-up
questions until the cows come home if they
are not truly great team players.
In other words...

17. REFERENCES.
REFERENCES.
REFERENCES.

18. The System for Gathering
1. Who was/is your supervisor at ABC Company?
2. What was/is their title/role?
3. How would you rate THEIR performance on a Scale of 1-10?
4. Why do you give them the score you do?
5. What would it have taken to get them from a 9 to a 10?
a. Don’t let them off the hook with a weak, wishy-washy answer here. Make sure it is real
and tangible. If not, WHY, WHY, WHY?
References:

19. The System for Gathering
1. Will so-and-so provide you a reference?
a. Any answer other than “yes” is unacceptable and a red flag.
b. “But, but, but..don’t companies have a policy against providing references?”
c. Let’s think about this: Why do companies have policies against providing references?
i. Liability, slander, DRAMA...
d. Hmmm that make sense, so if the person was loved dearly by all, including their supervisor, why
wouldn’t they want to brag about how great that person was? Wouldn’t you?
2. How would THEY rate YOUR performance on a Scale of 1-10?
3. Why do you think THEY would give you that score?
4. In their opinion, what would it have taken to get you from a 9 to a 10?
a. Don’t let them off the hook with weak, wishy-washy answer here. It better be real and tangible.
References:

20. Tying it Back to Culture
Ask candidate’s reference about their company
culture and how the candidate contributed to and
fit in with their culture
Tell reference a bit about your company and the
role this candidate will be assuming.
Ask candidate’s reference if they think this person is a
cultural fit

21. Your Own Write-Up
1. Draw a line down the middle of your paper
and title it Cultural Core Values.
2. Put the evidence of cultural fits on the left
side and evidence of non-fits on the right side
3. Have the other decision makers on your team
do the same, then compare notes
Create an onboarding and cultural
reinforcement program to make sure your
company's core values continue to build and
stay on track

22. Thanks!
Q&A
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