We were talking to a fellow entrepreneur about hiring. He was asking us about our process and within the technical implementation, we mentioned that out of everything, the most important thing we look at is culture fit. We said, we have one rule - culture fit trumps any skill.
We really don’t care how impressive your skills are, if you’re not a fit, we won’t hire you. As soon as we mentioned this, we saw the question in his face. He did ask the question.
What is culture fit?
I realized right then that culture fit is hard to explain because one, it’s not something measurable and two, it would depend on you.
So here’s how we explained us hiring for culture fit.
Define your culture.
What are the values that are most important for you?
Honesty, candor, fun, integrity, respect? What does your ideal teammate look like?
If you have an existing team, list down what you like about them and go back to that whenever you hire someone. What traits matter to you?
Communicates well, asks questions, confident, curious? What traits can’t you work with?
Example, I’m not too fond of crammers. So no matter how high an applicant’s skill level is, if she admits to being a crammer, that’s a non-negotiable for me. Imagine your ideal work day with your team.
How does it look like? What do you see? What are the positive things that come to mind? Once you have this foundation, the way you screen and hire applicants will hugely shift. Next step would be the technical parts - your job post and the process of how they apply.
