Recruiting to fit the culture of your organisation
by Adèle Bird

In order to successfully recruit people that fit the culture of your organisation, you firstly need to be clear what exactly that is.

The culture is linked to the vision and values of the organisation, so should be representative of the views of your Trustees.

Therefore, re-visit the vision and mission – perhaps even check it out with a questionnaire to the Trustees, to be clear on what they see as the culture of the organisation.

Then, do a similar questionnaire for the staff and assess whether or not they are singing from the same hymn sheet as the Trustees. If they are not, you have some internal communication work to do, before you even think about recruiting new staff to fit your culture!

The culture of the organisation is not just about the staff, and so shouldn’t be about recruiting clones of the previous post holder or other staff. Doing this can impede your organisation from moving on, developing and growing. However, you do need to keep in mind the profile of the current staff, as new people do need to ‘fit in’.

A central part of a charity’s culture is the cause, making passion for the cause a key part for any new appointment, particularly in outward facing and senior roles. It is important to remember that EVERYONE who works there will be advocates for your cause and drive the future direction of the charity.

So, once you have got the candidates, how do you measure ‘passion for’ or ‘an interest in’ the cause and a fit to culture?

Here we can look at two avenues –

1. Personality Tests

These types of tests have come along way since their inception and a number of large companies have started to depend on them as a means of screening out applicants.

When evaluating cultural fit they can be extremely useful as they offer a means to test personality in a way that many people believe is difficult to fake. Using a large number of questions, many of which are repeated throughout but subtly changed, they can use scales to ‘rank’ an individual’s personality. Tests, such as Orpheus, look at several key areas including:

• Extraversion/introversion
• Tough vs. tender-mindedness (agreeableness)
• Openness to experience
• Neuroticism
• Conscientiousness

Once completed the test gives a report of the candidate’s ‘typical’ traits and the type of working environment and management that would suit them and vice-versa. The report can then be compared against your culture and the management styles that exist in the organisation to see if they match.

The benefit of using these tests are that they can measure personality in a way that is not only difficult to fake, due of the repetition and number of questions, but also provides a way to make a logical decision that isn’t just based on personal preferences.

2. Interview Process

Having identified the vision and the ‘essence’ that defines your organisation’s culture, you now know which parts need protection and which parts can (and probably should) change and develop as your organisation changes and develops.

You then need to look at what the candidates have done in the past (either paid or voluntary) that shows that they have some sort of interest in the cause.

When I recruit for a cancer charity for example, every candidate seems to have a story to tell of the reason they are motivated to work for such a cause.

It may not be so obvious when recruiting for other causes, but even if they don’t have a background that shows an active interest, you can tease out from them what has engaged them in the cause and inspired them to apply. Or is it just the job that they are going for? They may have been motivated by something they’ve read – your website perhaps, so can explain why the cause is of interest to them.

This is especially important for fundraising posts and senior posts. In these posts, you really do need to show a passion for or a commitment to the cause.

As part of the interview process, you can ask them to encapsulate what they see as the case for support for your charity or its cause.

You can use a presentation assignment at interview to test this out. How can they convince you of the importance and benefit of the work of the charity.

If the candidate has worked in the charity sector before, and they have worked for a variety of different causes. Challenge that and how and why they have been committed to those causes. Sometimes there can be a logical thread through the reasons for choosing those causes, but sometimes they may have just gone for the job.

So which is best to use, the personality test or the interview? To be honest it’s not an either-or question as they are compatible and can back each other up. However, if using them together ensure that the personality test follows an interview, as a report is likely to influence you when interviewing. If you do have to make a choice to use one and not the other, I would recommend a thorough interview every time, as there’s no replacing an instinctive feeling of a candidates ability to match an organisation’s culture and ‘fit’ with the current staff.