How well is a candidate going to “fit” the needs of the company, the team and their role? Finding someone who fits is not the same as finding someone who fits in – just like a hinge fits a door or tires fit a car, two members of a team can be nothing alike and fit together perfectly with a unified purpose. 

Unlike grit, fit is totally unique to each organization, team, and role. While managers can define the values and characteristics they are looking for, they don’t often translate them into interview questions that will determine fit. Good questions for fit uncover a candidate’s natural values, their personality characteristics, and their idiosyncrasies. 

Shared Values

First, a new hire needs to fit the values of the company. Get beyond generic values like honesty, customer focus, and other mostly universal values. What values make your organization unique such as being highly intense verses laid back, process heavy verses creative, direct verses passive, or focused on individual verses team performance.

Questions like these uncover values:

• Tell us about at time you had a major deadline and how you handled it?

• Do you prefer known processes or do you enjoy having to create your own and why?

• Tell us a time you gave or received negative feedback, how did you handle it?

• Did you prefer individual sports or team sports and why?

Keep in mind, some people are balanced in one or more areas and will be able to adapt and even enhance the shared values of the company. However, if the candidate can’t articulate appreciation for a value that is important for the organization, then there will be problems. 

Diverse Characteristics

Second, what are the characteristics you need for a given role? For example, sales people need to be interpersonal while account managers need to be attuned to details. Define the characteristics needed for the job and ask questions that highlight characteristics.

• What was your favorite job and what aspect did you enjoy most?

• If you could pick any job what would it be?

• What were your favorite classes in college and why?

Questions like these can uncover the characteristics of the candidate. If they don’t give specific examples then they are just saying what they think will get them the job.

Watch for idiosyncrasies

Idiosyncrasies are unusual behaviors that may, at first glance, seem interesting or even endearing but are irrelevant to the role. While tolerable at first, idiosyncrasies can quickly become a quirk that annoys. Excessive talking, egotistical comments, sarcastic responses, a negative outlook, passiveness, or being thin skinned are all things that can be difficult to detect during the interview but will doom the candidate and their future team. Simply watch for these idiosyncrasies during the interview and know that the more people who individually interview the candidate, the more likely these traits will be detected. It could be a particular interviewer who’s good at getting a candidate comfortable and then uncovers otherwise hidden idiosyncrasies, give additional weight to that person’s assessment.

Bring it Together

If you find someone who fits well, then technical skills can be taught. The team will value their presence and naturally engage them as they develop into a valuable player with shared values and distinct, important characteristics. Hiring for fit means productive teams that are highly profitable because they are cohesive and stable as they work toward goals. It’s worth getting it right.

What questions do you use to hire for fit? What idiosyncrasies have come back to haunt you? What happens when people don’t fit? Please “Like” the article and comment below!