Hiring Processes: Skills vs. Culture in Employment

Introduction to the Hiring Process

One of the most critical determining factors of whether an employee will succeed in a position takes place before the employee even becomes part of the organization — in the form of the hiring process. Employers may use a wide variety of methods to notify candidates about open positions. The most straightforward is advertising on websites, both general and trade-based. While this has the advantage of casting a wide net for potential applicants, it is also relatively diffuse and random in terms of the candidates it solicits.

Internal postings ensure that candidates already have a good understanding of the job and the company, but this technique obviously limits the scope of the search and can prevent the organization from developing potentially valuable new talent. Still, internally based approaches are preferred by many organizations. "It makes sense: it takes a certain kind of person to thrive at" the organization, "and those people tend to spend time (personally and professionally) with people like themselves."¹ In-house hires have already demonstrated they can succeed in the environment.

Recruitment Methods and Candidate Sourcing

Job agencies and headhunters can be useful resources. They enable some prescreening of potential candidates by the agency, ensuring suitability and providing validation of references. They can also save the company the costs of extensive background checks. Job fairs can be similarly useful, particularly at colleges for younger employees seeking entry-level positions. However, for higher-level managerial and executive positions, such general strategies tend to be less effective.

Interview Techniques and Skills Assessment

After prescreening resumes, the next step usually involves some form of interview process. Having a clear sense of the skills required for the position is essential. "What are the five key skills a successful candidate must have to succeed at this job? And what are the five key attitudes or behaviors that will enable him or her not just to succeed but to excel at it? You need to know these key skills and behaviors, clearly and unambiguously."²

Defining the job according to KSAs (knowledge, skills, and abilities) is a frequently used technique among employers. For many jobs, certain technical capabilities are indeed essential. For this reason, along with general interviews to assess personality, applicants are frequently asked to perform "tests (Do they need to write code in PHP and jQuery? Give them some coding to do); role plays (Do they need to sell? Take them on a ride-along and watch them sell); simulations (Need to make snap decisions under pressure? Let's see them do it)"³ to concretely determine that they can perform a specific task. The downside to such task-based approaches, however, is that no simulated task can fully mimic the demands of the actual workplace.

Conclusion: The Future of Hiring

The culture versus capabilities debate will likely rage on in HR. However, given the success of companies such as Zappos, which focus on hiring based upon cultural fit more than talent alone, the emphasis will likely shift increasingly toward creating a hiring process designed to recruit people with the right spirit — not simply the right skills. The costs of hiring an employee who is a poor fit for the company culture are simply too great to ignore.