The impact of a poor fit
Sometimes you feel like you’ve hit the jackpot when you’ve found an experienced hire. But prioritizing experience over fit can spell disastrous consequences for your marketing team in the long run.
A poor cultural fit can cause decreased productivity and increased turnover rates. Your team’s morale can be dampened when a team member feels out of place or like they don’t belong, leading to negativity and decreased work satisfaction. Team members who can’t connect with others on the team might not enjoy working with them and may not check in with communication points regularly. The feeling of exclusion and lack of collaboration can make tasks take longer to complete, impacting team output.
If team members quit, it can be disruptive to the workflow, and remaining team members become frustrated with constantly having to readjust. And it’s not just the internal workings of the team that are affected: A poor cultural fit can result in poor customer experience, affecting the company’s reputation. That can directly lead to financial costs, among other things.
So, when you’re getting swept up in the excitement of a potential hire, take a step back. Check to see if they fit in with your team’s values. Their work experience is important, of course, but let’s not ignore the bigger picture. After all, what use is that experience if they can’t contribute to a productive and encouraging work culture?
The hiring process
With all this said, hiring is where the right fit starts. Here are some tips on attracting, identifying and nurturing the right fit.
Job descriptions: Crafting the perfect job description can help emphasize cultural fit. It allows you to skim resumes for specific experience and qualification, making it easy to weed out any non-qualifying applicants. However, more than skills and requirements, it’s essential to look at the candidate’s personality and how they’ll fit in with your team. A job description’s tone can give potential candidates a sense of what kind of organization they’ll be joining. It’s crucial to use words aligned with your company’s mission and values.
Behavioral assessments and interviews: Conducting behavioral interviews helps assess how a candidate would respond to certain situations, providing insight into their natural communication style, leadership style and conflict resolution skills. This type of interview enables you to know the candidate on a deeper level than just the skills you see on the resume. It’s crucial to look for cues in their answers that help you determine if this person is a good fit for the team.
Soft skills: Assessing soft skills like empathy, emotional intelligence, collaboration and adaptability are essential components of the hiring process—it’s vital to evaluate the candidate’s personality, work ethic, communication and ability to fit into the company culture. You can achieve this by posing questions that require thoughtful, creative responses.
