Why Does Culture Matter to IT Pros?

Adam KoopermanCompany Culture

When hiring for tech roles, it’s easy to get hung up on a candidate’s skills and experience. After all, those are crucial for their success on the job. However, there is another key piece to the puzzle that has a real impact on the long-term success of an IT candidate: Culture. The culture of your organization impacts the way every employee feels about their work, and hiring for cultural alignment is as important as hiring for skill match.

Why Culture Match Is Important

Culture fit isn’t a buzzword. It has a real impact on an employee’s job satisfaction. People who are aligned with company culture report:

  • Higher productivity levels.
  • Greater job satisfaction levels.
  • Longer retention rates.

No matter how skilled they may be, when someone’s personality or style of work clashes with the culture of the company, they won’t feel comfortable. They may not get along with coworkers, they may resist organizational policies and norms, they may not collaborate well with their team and they will be much more likely to leave the job within the first year.

Retention is one of the biggest challenges in the IT market today. By focusing on both skill match and cultural fit, you can increase the odds that you’ll keep talented professionals on your team.

Evaluating Cultural Fit

It’s important to speak directly and honestly about your culture to candidates during the interview process. Many candidates will self-select out of the process if they feel they won’t be happy working with your organization. However, not all candidates will have that level of self-awareness so you want to take other measures to uncover cultural alignment.

Here are a few questions you should ask when evaluating fit with your culture:

  • What type of work environment do you thrive in?
  • What did you like most about the last place you worked?
  • What did you like least?
  • What type of management style do you prefer from your direct supervisor?
  • Why do you want to work here?

You can also leverage personality tests reference checks to uncover more clues about a candidate’s potential fit.

Identifying The Right Match

Identifying candidates who are a strong cultural match is not an easy feat. That’s where CultureFit can help. Our technology recruiting process is centered on cultural alignment so we can ensure that every candidate we recommend is technically qualified and culturally matched to the organization.

Every client and candidate we work with completes the CultureFit Certification process, a rigorous but streamlined strategy that successfully matches candidates and employers based on culture. If you are looking for tech talent for your Chicago-area company and you want to improve the quality of your hires, it’s time to talk to CultureFit. Contact us today to learn how we can help you achieve your IT staffing and retention goals.

 

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