Recruitment is important. After all, without a team, there is no company; but with so many open positions and so much to do, sometimes it's hard to find the right people to bring aboard. If you have ever hired someone or been a part of the hiring process, you've probably been here. After an extensive and thorough search for a position, one candidate stands out. They have the right experience, solid qualifications, an impressive resume, and they did an excellent job during the interview process. They said the right things, put forward some great ideas, and generally presented very well. You hire them. A few months later, you begin to question your decision. Your new hire doesn't seem to be meshing well with your team and their productivity is not what you were expecting to see. After speaking with some of the team, you realize there's a disconnect. While impressive on paper and during the interview process, their style, approach and behavior on the job are simply inconsistent with the values and expectations of your organization. Your new hire is not a good cultural fit.
We have all said it, but what does that actually mean? Is "cultural fit" a tangible trait? If we were to do a simple internet search, SearchCIO.com defines cultural fit as "the likelihood that a job candidate will be able to conform and adapt to the core values and collective behaviors that make up an organization." I tend to agree with this definition, though I believe that those core values and collective behaviors can look and feel differently for each company or organization. Businesses often cite the ability to attract and retain top talent as among the elements most critical to their success. This remains true today despite fairly high unemployment rates as many critical jobs go unfilled, but in many respects, hiring effectively is as much about bringing in the right cultural fit as it is about skill set.
At New Signature, we put a lot of stock into finding the "right" people for the company. The interview process consists of a variety of positions and roles speaking with the candidate, all coming at the hiring process from a different angle/perspective. We have a great guide that we can utilize during interviews which helps the interview team to make sure they get a comprehensive view of the applicant.
Once a candidate is hired, the real fun starts. Employee well-being through our core values is incorporated in every aspect of New Signature's business, from strategy to operations to executive leadership. A new employee is welcomed with various posts and welcomes via our internal Yammer site, as well as a welcome in front of the entire staff on our Friday staff call. The new hire also has the chance to meet with numerous executives and stakeholders, and is setup and introduced to a learning path for personal and career oriented growth, another incredibly important part of the New Signature culture. It is important to New Signature that employees feel that they know the business, and that they feel listened to, so we have several ongoing "office hour" type trainings for internal folks, as well as surveys throughout the year from our human resources department, where we do see a lot of changes as a result of the anonymous surveys. Finally, New Signature employees work hard but "play hard" too. The company works to make sure employees have a good work/life balance, and that co-workers have time to enjoy themselves and each other via various events and happy hours to bring the teams together.
The employees of New Signature spend our days investing our time, talents, and energies to make successful solutions for our customers. We are humbled at the amazing things our clients say about us, and we are also proud of New Signature internally as a great place to work.
In reality, New Signature is geographically dispersed across three continents and several countries. But New Signature is one team, pivoted on our core values, and along with a great resume, our core values are what defines our correct "cultural fit" when hiring.
Human – We use our hearts and minds to collaborate for success.
Generous – We are giving and respectful.
Authentic – We tell it as it is, with positive intent.
Innovative – We push the boundaries at the intersection of people, process and technology.
From a purely business standpoint, Microsoft's partner community is quite large, with 22 thousand managed partners in the US alone, and because of this it becomes more and more important for specific partners to set themselves apart from the masses. Aside from our spanning knowledge of virtually everything Microsoft, employees are encouraged to be innovative, think outside the box, fill gaps, and to treat every person we interact with, from the UPS delivery person to the CEO of a customer, as if they are the most important person to our business. New Signature puts a big emphasis on weaving our core values and culture into every feature of our business, and I think this is what really sets us apart in both external and internal cases. No matter how much New Signature grows and expands, we strive to be better than we were yesterday, and this includes our recruiting.
To learn more about our core values that drive our every interaction and what you can expect when you partner with us, you can read up on our culture. And if you believe that you would be a great cultural fit for New Signature, check out our current career opportunities!
Follow our Field Marketing Specialist Team Lead, and author of this post, @LyndseyCreamer.