Leveraging Core Values During the Interview Process
While there are many elements to hiring the perfect candidate, one stands out as the most important: effectively communicating the core values of your company. Defining and educating prospects on these values helps ensure each person you ask to join your team shares your vision and goals, allowing you to build a successful and welcoming culture for all.
Have you considered the importance of using core values in an interview?
When hiring internal candidates at WHO Staffing, we ask specific questions during the interview process around each of our four core values to determine if candidates match our culture. We follow the “get it, want it, has the capacity to do the job” (GWC) approach used by Entrepreneurial Operating Systems, which helps us quickly determine if we’re hiring the right person for the right position.
WHO Staffing’s four core values are:
Be Connected. We want people that work to build meaningful relationships with everyone they come in contact with.
Be Intuitive. We look for those who can connect the dots and solve problems based on experience and instinct.
Be Selfless. The end goal is not about us. We want individuals who are here to serve our candidates and clients first, and whose desires are secondary to their needs.
Be Authentic. We want people to join our team who are comfortable in their own skin and use their uniqueness as a strength.
What are your company’s core values? Have you shared them with potential candidates during the interview process? Here are a few tips to identify the core values that match your company culture and how to use them to hire top talent.
Discover Your Core Values
If you’ve never laid the groundwork to determine your core values, start by asking your employees for their input. Your process may differ depending on the size of your company, but you focus on asking questions that balance positive and negative responses. The answers you receive will help you identify your strengths and areas to grow.
Some questions you could ask your employees include:
How would you describe the work environment and culture?
Are there any areas we could improve upon?
Can you describe the type of person who’s successful here?
What motivates you to go above and beyond?
What was the deciding factor for choosing to work here?
Discuss Core Values in Interviews
For any company culture to be successful, you must evaluate if potential candidates also believe in and embody your core values. First, confirm that your recruiting and hiring managers know your core values, and then have them speak to each during the interview process to potential candidates. This process helps determine if your candidates share the same excitement around your core values and eliminates applicants who would otherwise not match.
To dig a little deeper, you can ask specific interview questions that reveal candidates’ experience with your core values. For example, if you work for a fast-growing technology company with a core value of innovation, you could ask potential candidates to share trends they’ve seen in your industry. If your core value is integrity, perhaps you ask the candidate to share a situation that involved identifying and doing the right thing.
Asking core value-based questions will help you determine if candidates fit in with your culture before extending an offer.
Share Core Values Before an Interview
Communicating core values with candidates during the interview process is one way to see if applicants embody your core values. But it’s possible to go one step further by reaching interested candidates before an interview.
One way to do this is by working with recruiters who believe people matter most and who look beyond a resume to help you hire and empower a candidate who shares your vision and goals.
You can also incorporate your core values into promotional collateral (e.g. flyers, website, etc.) and candidate personas. When looking into your company, candidates will actively research to learn more about your beliefs and core values. In fact, one study shows 75% of candidates will research a company’s reputation before applying to a job opening. By revealing your company’s culture through promotional materials, candidates can identify if they share your core values before applying.
Conclusion
The key to hiring individuals who are the best fit for your company starts with your core values. Work with your existing employees to actively evaluate if applicants share your core values during the interview process and you will successfully attract top talent who are excited by the opportunity to join your team.
If Who Staffing can help you in any way with building a process that allows you to win the war on talent, please feel free to reach out to start a conversation or go here for more information about us.
