Job satisfaction hinges on a critical ingredient: cultural fit.
Harvard Business Review defines cultural fit as the probability that someone shares and can adapt to an organisation’s core beliefs, attitudes, and behaviours.
Alternatively, a more progressive way to perceive cultural fit, is cultural add. Culture add is when someone brings diverse experiences, perspectives, and ideas to the workplace.
This perspective embodies the idea that a cultural add enhances and adds to the current company culture – and aligns with organisations that wish to promote belonging, equity, inclusion, and diversity efforts.
At Talent Right, we understand that assessing cultural fit or cultural add, can be a challenging process. No matter how alluring a role may be, a lack of cultural fit with the organisation can result in an unsustainable long-term fit.
We’ve developed a shortlist of questions that may benefit you in the search of top talent!
17 Cultural Fit (Cultural Add) Interview Questions
- In what ways do your colleagues benefit from working with you as opposed to your coworkers?
- Can you describe a situation where understanding someone else’s perspective helped you achieve a goal or resolve a conflict?
- What are your thoughts on our company’s culture, values, and mission?
- What values do you bring to our organisation, and how do you believe we can improve our culture or values?
- Tell us about a time you encountered a decision or situation you disagreed with. How did you handle it?
- How do you measure success at work, and what does a successful day look like to you?
- What is something you learned in the past year that you are proud of?
- Describe a time when you received feedback from a manager or colleague. How did you respond, and what did you learn?
- How have your career goals changed over time?
- Share a time when you changed your perspective about a work-related issue or situation. What was the outcome?
- What qualities do you look for in a leader, and how do you prefer to be managed?
- Based on your knowledge of the role, do you have any recommendations on how to improve it?
- How do you approach solving tough problems, and what is your attitude towards teamwork and collaboration?
- What values or behaviors do you consider most important in a company, and how does your personal value system align with our organization’s values?
- Can you describe a time when you learned a new skill or task? How did you approach it, and what was the result?
- What attracts you to our company values, and how do they align with your personal values?
- Describe a situation where your colleagues disagreed with your ideas. What did you do?
3 Bonus Tips to Remember During the Hiring Process
Acknowledge and Address your Biases
We all have unconscious biases, but it’s important to recognise them and be honest about any “blind spots” you may have. Be aware of any implicit biases you may have, especially when interviewing candidates.
Encourage Feedback from the Team
Multiple team members often interview a candidate, so it’s crucial to provide a platform for feedback and listen attentively to what your employees have to say. Constructive disagreement is okay, but ignoring feedback is not.
Reflect on what you’ve learned
After concluding a culture fit interview, take a few minutes to pause and reflect. Consider what you learned from the candidate, how they could challenge your team, how they could add to your company’s culture, and what they could bring to the table that’s currently missing in your organisation.
Start Adding the Right Talent to your Team with Talent Right
At Talent Right, we specialise in finding and matching top talent with the right opportunities.
Work with us to ensure your interviewers are asking cultural fit questions during the hiring process – we take the burden of recruitment off your shoulders.
Forward-thinking, strategic and focused, the Talent Right team works on your behalf, with your best interests in mind.
1300 903 930