While many different factors impact an organization’s success, the strength of its culture is always an important consideration. Culture acts as the road on which an organization drives to achieve success. Whether that road is smooth and well-maintained or bumpy and full of potholes has a tremendous effect on the speed and efficiency of the organization’s journey. It also affects the productivity and well-being of the employees that drive their organization forward.

Those employees are responsible for building and maintaining the culture within their organization. Managers need to be aware of what their organization’s culture is, what they want it to be, and how their employees are cultivating it. While potential employees should meet specific education, experience, and skill requirements, managers should also evaluate job candidates’ mindsets and behavior patterns to determine if they will contribute to a positive culture.

This process is ripe for error. Different managers can interview the same candidate and come out with very different perceptions of the candidate’s cultural fit, and issues of bias are ever-present and difficult to work around. This is where dedicated talent sourcers come in. A dedicated sourcer or sourcing team has the knowledge, skills, and tools to find, research, and submit quality candidates that fit the role and will contribute to the culture of the organization.

Here are two questions great sourcers will ask themselves before beginning the search for candidates:

What are my organization’s most important values?

Sourcers should ask hiring managers and recruiters about the most important values in their organization. This will help the sourcer understand the organization’s values, but even more importantly, it will help them assess how comfortable the managers are with the way their organization currently embodies these values. Do managers want new employees to embody similar characteristics to their current workforce or bring fresh perspective to move the organization further in the right direction?

What questions can I ask potential candidates that will help me understand if they fit these values?

Examples include:

• What are some core values of your current organization? Do you agree with these core values, and if not, what would you change about them?
• Where do you prefer to live on the continuum of teamwork and individual contribution?
• Do you consider [insert value of hiring organization] to be important in the workplace? Why or why not?

These questions help sourcers assess candidates’ personalities and how well they match the values of the hiring organization. While some sourcers prefer not to conduct initial phone calls with candidates, understanding these questions will help them advise recruiters and hiring managers on key cultural considerations.

When sourcers consider these questions and gather answers through discussions with hiring managers, recruiters, and candidates, they will gain a much more comprehensive view of their project. They will be able to assess candidates based not only on a job description, but on the values those candidates bring to the workplace and the strength of their alignment with the organization as a whole.

Written by: Jake Knight, Sourcing Consultant