As I've stressed before, the key to effective hiring lies in making sure an applicant's personal values align with the culture of your organization. To be sure, finding workers with the skills or experience needed to perform a job is important. But misjudging how a candidate will fit into your company's culture will likely lead to dissatisfaction for both you and the newly hired employee. If you find spotting that connection challenging, you're not alone.

In a recent poll, 59 percent of human resource managers admitted to hiring a candidate who proved to be a poor fit for their company's culture. The survey, conducted by staffing specialists OfficeTeam, revealed a major pitfall of hiring people ill-suited for an organization's culture: 85 percent of HR managers acknowledged losing a staff member who did not fit the company's work environment.

Diane Domeyer, OfficeTeam's executive director, says the interview is a good opportunity to assess the employer-employee fit -- for both parties. "The interview is a two-way street," says Domeyer. "Employers are looking for clues to an applicant's work ethic and personality, and job seekers want to learn more about the company culture." To help hiring managers find good matches, she suggests asking potential candidates the following type of interview questions:

- What type of work environment brings out your best performance?
- In what type of work environment are you least likely to thrive?
- What did you like best/least about your last job and why?
- Considering your greatest accomplishments in previous roles, what were the factors that allowed you to be successful?

As it turns out, recognizing a good work-culture fit is difficult for job applicants, too. Nearly half of the respondents in the OfficeTeam survey said they have misjudged an eventual employer's work environment in the past.

Labels: employees, hiring, values

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