They Have The Talent But Do They Have The Personality?

By Cheryl Morgan

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Recruiting the right job candidate is challenging. A candidate's education and skills must meet requirements, but that isn't all that's necessary for a successful hire. How a person fits into your company's culture is also extremely important - and more difficult to assess and qualify. Some employers believe that personality is even more important than skill sets, and if you have ever had a "good on paper" job candidate turn out disastrously you probably agree.

The right personality plus the right qualifications equals your best job candidate.

Your company culture helps you attract great new talent and keeps your team motivated. Building upon a great corporate culture as your company grows can be challenging, however. Trying to force a good fit when a job candidate's personality isn't right can cause serious problems like increased turnover and the high costs associated with that. Your recruiting strategy, including your social recruiting strategy, can help you find the person with the right skills mix and the right personality for your company.
 

Why Good Cultural Fit Matters to Employees and Employers

People spend around one-third of their lives at work, and for many, a job is about far more than simply earning the money to pay the bills. People want to maximise their potential, and when they don't fit in with the company they work for, they don't feel like they can do that. They end up short-changing both themselves and the company. If an employee (particularly a highly qualified one) does not feel like her company shares many of the same values or that the company does not allow her to make the most of her potential, she won't stay long, and the expensive recruiting process has to start over.

A great cultural fit between employers and employees correlates with positive outcomes. Specifically, employees who fit in well with their employer's culture have better job satisfaction, identify more closely with their employer, are more likely to remain with the employer, are more committed, and show better job performance. If your social recruiting efforts help you land that "good fit" employee, you'll have a happier, more productive employee who is likely to stay around longer and who will be more committed to helping you achieve your goals.

 

Finding People With the Right Personality Traits


Recruiting advice
Defining "good fit" up front helps you evaluate job candidates more efficiently.

Social recruiting efforts can go a long way toward finding job candidates with the right personality for your culture, but you have to do some work in advance. First, you must define what a "good fit" means in your company. It's important to know what you're looking for. Second, your application process can be adapted to highlight an applicant's personality. Some companies, for example, develop interactive online tools that can help them understand applicants' personalities and values better.

Third, you must set a good example in your interviews, by being open and honest. Speak to interviewees like colleagues, and be open enough to allow them to connect with you. Encourage their questions and be clear about what you hope you will both get from the conversation. Finally, be honest. It's OK to let interviewees know some of the challenges your company is facing at the moment, without divulging too much. Gauging their reaction and listening to how they respond can give you important clues about how well they may fit in.

 

Your Corporate Culture and Your Social Recruiting Strategy

Your social recruiting strategy is far more than posting job openings on social media. Your company's social media strategy should allow you to share what's important about your company and showcase what makes your company unique. It may seem counterintuitive to emphasize sharing relevant company information over posting job listings, but doing so can help potential job candidates learn up front whether they share the same values as your company. The result can be much less time wasted evaluating and interviewing job candidates that aren't a good fit.

 

Conclusion

At Social-Hire, we are in the business of helping companies just like yours develop and implement smart, appealing, and effective social recruiting strategies. As a leading social media marketing agency in the recruitment and careers industry, we can help you identify the candidates you want to find, learn where they spend time online, and then use the many social recruiting tools available to help you accomplish your goals. The result is a well-rounded, comprehensive social recruiting strategy that helps you find candidates who are not only qualified, but who are more likely to mesh with your corporate culture. Why not get in touch? We would be delighted to set up an expert consultation about your social media strategy just for you.

What does our team do?

At Social Hire, we don't just do social.

What the Social Hire gang loves is making a difference for our clients, and we don't want to waste your, or our resources on marketing for marketing's sake, if it doesn't get your organisation the impression you need - we take a different approach.

Our digital marketing managers are the wizards that can give you the insight you need to develop your business. Have you had enough of making complex personnel choices that don't work well for your digital presence?

The social media marketers in our company are the best in the business at helping our partners enhance their online marketing. We outline and implement cutting-edge social media marketing plans that help our customers realise their organisational objectives and further their social media presence. Our experienced team of digital experts do your social media strategy creation and management in an uncomplicated monthly plan that is cost-effective and is genuinely useful, whatever results you demand from your marketing team.

We're an organisation that helps our clients boost their social media marketing by offering social media marketing on a monthly basis.

You might like these blog posts 10 Ways Small Business Can Benefit From Social Media, 6 Reasons Why Every Small Business Needs Content Marketing, Why Blogging is Worth Your Tight Budget and How to Make it Work, and How to Turn Leads on Social Media Into Customers.

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