When it comes to bringing in new teammates to get your product to the next level, a checklist of criteria is common and necessary. You want to know more about candidates’ skills, experience, collaboration, and problem solving. But what about the way they deal with feedback? Or organize tasks? After all, a strong team is composed of members that are effective, not just “familiar”. Building diversity of thought in a team can be tough because even the most seasoned hiring team can be biased. It’s only human to like what is familiar. However, to create teams where different perspectives, backgrounds, personalities, and styles are welcome organizations need to defeat this all too common bias.
Is Talent or Likability?
During the interview process sometimes companies will include a culture fit call with teammates from other departments who would appear to be outside the scope of bias. After all, they’re not privy to the person’s experience and backstory, right? What we don’t take into account is that people will often soften towards similar experiences and personalities, often choosing someone they’re more likely to be “friends” with rather than considering a candidate who’s good at their job doesn’t know the social queues.
Alignment with vision and values should be related to workflow and communication skills, though considering regional and socioeconomic culture differences, even this can be tricky. Why not ask a person about tough obstacles or issues that they were able to overcome or resolve? How about the way they organize their day, and how they feel about meeting deadlines? When we move away from personality and more towards ability and work ethics, it’s easier to spot someone who will align with the OKRs and KPIs your company wants to reach.
Why Alignment Matters
You can have the most talented candidate but if they don’t align, they’ll be resigning pretty soon or will not make it past their three-month probation period. It’ll be expensive for the company and will only bring about more delays, as another search will need to start with the next hire being trained all over again. If the right questions are asked from the beginning there’s a much smoother process going forward. Now, let’s look at some of those questions that can let recruiters know the candidate is going in the right direction.
Strategic Hiring Practices
Enthusiasm is not something that every person can demonstrate in the same way. But hiring teams can ask specific questions that will let candidates show the amount of interest in a role. However, based on someone’s personal history they might be more reserved or unlikely to “show emotion” in a more typical way. Asking facts and going for real-life examples avoids interviewers from rejecting someone simply because they don’t react “correctly”.
One question that our team here at EQUALS TRUE uses to assess alignment is; “If you could design your next perfect professional opportunity, what would it look like?” This lets the hiring team listen to whether job seekers have read thoroughly the role description or even looked up the company. It also provides an insight of their status. Are they just looking for a role to bounce between their current job to one they like more? Or did they look at something in the company’s values that made them excited about having this interview about possibly getting hired for this role? While enthusiasm can be debatable, their response will say more about whether they were invested in the conversation.
Being Real About Familiarity
We all have biases, conscious and unconscious. So let’s not use that as an excuse to not drive diverse thinking and attitudes in teams. Hiring teams and recruitment can work together to build a system that is as objective as possible. Developing a welcoming and thoughtful talent process helps interview teams defeat bias and make great hiring choices. Alignment is about teams reaching their goals, not about creating cliques within a company. When we stop looking for “the fit” and start looking for the contribution we can truly open the door to the best talent.
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