Cultural Fit Interview Questions

Hiring the right candidates isn’t just about finding applicants with the best skills and professional experience. HR specialists should also consider them in terms of cultural fit. Otherwise, they risk recruiting a disruptor to the established corporate culture, which, in turn, affects in-team collaboration and overall productivity. Here, we will elaborate on the cultural fit interview and present questions for you to include in it.

What Can You Assess With Cultural Fit Interview Questions?

About one-third of employees are sure that their values don’t match with their company’s, as stated in the State of Employee Engagement report. This is a huge indicator that businesses should take the notion of the cultural fit seriously. Since individuals’ values can’t be altered, it’s only logical to evaluating whether the prospects fit the corporate style or not at the initial stages. Otherwise, a company risks undermining the established peace within a team with the new hires.

That’s exactly what cultural fit interview questions are for. Their aim is to determine if a prospect and his beliefs fit your corporate culture or not. The main idea isn’t about finding a clone who will resemble your values 100%. Instead, you should identify the individual who will correspond in the major aspects with you.

Among the main benefits of such interviews are:

• A prosperous working atmosphere, which has a direct impact on overall performance. Moreover, when a person shares the values with a company, he is likely to achieve more because of higher motivation.
• Lack of misunderstandings that significantly hinder the development. Even minor disagreements can lead to major conflicts and undermine daily business operations.

Samples of Cultural Fit Interview Questions

In this section, we present culture interview questions. They are designed to aid you in evaluating the prospects at the interview stage and finding out whether an individual and his life principles match with your corporate beliefs. Please note: it’s not obligatory to ask every single question during the interview. It’s always advisable to focus on those questions that are relevant to your needs only.

General Questions

• What does a perfect corporate environment where you show maximum efficiency and productivity look like?
• Relying on your professional experience, how can a company stimulate you to go out of your limits and achieve more?
• What aspects of the corporate culture at your last or current occupation appealed to you most of all?
• Imagine you need to determine one thing of the corporate culture that contributes to your performance at the workplace more than others. What would it be? What other factors did you consider?
• Please, describe a perfect working day.
• Do you share our corporate values? Which appeals to you more than others and which less than others?

Management-Related Questions

• Who is your ideal supervisor? Please, specify their character portrait. Is this a real-life example or not?
• What management style is the most efficient for you and encourages you to show your best performance?
• Please, specify five main characteristics of the perfect senior management.
• Please, name the core principles to follow to maintain healthy, prospering business relationships. Provide three to five principles.

Teamwork-Related Questions

• How do you treat friendship at work: shall it take place? Please share your professional experience: did you establish friendly relationships with your colleagues in your previous occupations?
• Would you rather work alone or in a team? Why so? Please, specify how much time would you prefer to devote to each?
• What role do you typically take in teamwork? Would your colleagues agree with you? If not, what role would they assign to you?
• In your personal opinion, how would your colleagues from the previous occupation characterize your performance and achievements and their role in the company’s success?
• Please, share a situation from your professional experience when your team didn’t agree with you or rejected your idea. How did you react? What further actions did you undertake?

Performance-Related Questions

• Please, elaborate on the last stressful incident that took place at work. How did you handle it?
• If disappointment happens, how do you handle it?
• What role does empathy (you can exchange with kindness, support, etc.) play in your daily work?
• Have you ever taken professional risks? When was the last time you did?
• Is it your working style to go out of your comfort zone and exceed your limits to deliver superior service? If yes, please share what exactly did you undertake and when.

It’s not surprising that the above-mentioned questions are open. This is the most suitable type for cultural interview questions as they allow an interviewee to express his/her opinion in full. Therefore, you can get a better understanding of the prospect and identify him/her as a fit or not.

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