Beyond the CV

Recruitment – Beyond the CV

Educational requirements – check.

Relevant experience spanning over an appropriate number of years – check.

Proven knowledge and value addition in the relevant area of expertise – check.

The perfect candidate right? Well, if simply ticking these boxes was all it took to find the perfect employee recruitment would be easy, but finding the right person sometimes is not that straight forward. The right fit to fill an opening goes beyond just getting someone who can get the job done, the degree of an employee’s success, and hence their contribution towards your organisation's success, is also determined by how well they fit within your company’s style and culture.

So what do we mean when we say the “right fit”? At Lorimak Africa (a Baker Tilly Network Member) when we review potential candidates, the right fit does mean good job fit, which is having the necessary skills, experience and knowledge, but beyond just looking at their CV to gauge their competence, we also consider workplace fit. The latter is something that some organisations do not factor into their hiring strategy but its importance cannot be overstated.  Your company is driven by a certain set of values and it has a mission and vision that guides it, and it is important to ensure that whomever you bring on board can align with that in order to help push the company in the correct direction. Research by Forbes found that while 11% of new hires fail because of bad job fit, 89% fail because of bad cultural fit, so if this was not a factor you took into consideration before you may want to think about making it part of your hiring process.

So why is workplace fit so important when recruiting? Well, hiring the wrong person can be expensive in a number of ways. For example, going through the recruitment process just to have your new hire leave the team a month later may mean having to go through hiring and on boarding procedures all over again; that can be a big cost on your time. With employees who are a good fit within your workplace, satisfaction levels tend to be higher and therefore turnover rates are lower. Put simply, employees who are happy are less likely to leave and one factor that drives their happiness at work is limited friction between them and their way of doing things, and that of the company.

In addition to staying longer employees who are satisfied generally tend to do their jobs better and add more value. Having a workforce with high morale that is truly in tune and engaged with the way your organisation operates often leads to higher productivity and people being willing to go above and beyond within their job roles. Furthermore, making workplace fit a core part of your hiring criteria means you are more likely to build a team that works well together and a good team dynamic can significantly increase productivity as well. Now this does not mean that everyone will always get along, conflict is a given, but resolving disagreements is easier when your workforce's values align.

As the only company with Work Environment and Candidate Style Analysis software systems in SADC, Lorimak Africa invests greatly into ensuring any candidate put forward for clients is not just a good fit for the job but also for their company's unique culture, work style and personality. Finding the right candidate is a multi-faceted process and needs to take a lot more into consideration than just a person's CV. However, it is also important to understand that hiring for cultural or workplace fit does not mean being biased in your recruitment process and excluding people who may not fit within a certain box (having a diverse team has immense advantages), rather it means ensuring that their traits complement your culture and how things are done within your company. Getting recruitment correct the first time will save you a lot of time and money, and finding your perfect match will ensure that you have a dedicated workforce that will help your organisation realise success.