CIO Career: How Do You Screen For Cultural Fit?

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It’s Sunday night.  You review your commitments for the week, and it seems you have over committed yourself yet again.  You just can’t find enough good people to cover your most important projects. 

Perhaps, you plan to double the size of your team, and now face the challenge of hiring an entire new group of people.  Maybe you need to replace your senior staff, and now have the opportunity to reshape the character of your group.

Whether you need to hire a whole team of experienced professionals, or just that golden one, you must think about how a new personality will fit your organization.  You probably know from experience that many, if not most failed hires stem from poor cultural fit.  On average, cultural mismatch accounts for about half of first year attrition. 

So what can you do to make sure you hire the right ones?

In many cases, rapid turnover costs more than not hiring at all.  If you take the time to calculate the cost, you will also think hard about how to reduce attrition.  Interviewing well and making good choices will begin to address this challenge.  If you look at your hiring practices, you will also look at how you screen intangibles.Â