Company culture is a unique aspect of hiring. It is the one element that is not based on objective facts like skills or location but instead a match of style between candidates and employers. However, over many decades of analyzing what creates a successful long-term hiring decision, we find that company culture is an overwhelming factor. A 9-5 professional in a stay-late team is more likely to bounce even if they have all the right skills. An extrovert may quickly feel isolated on a team where professional distance is the norm. Even something as small as an office radio can create that critical divide between those ‘in’ the company culture and those who aren’t quite the right fit.
While hiring for company culture is primarily the responsibility of employers, job boards have always played a major role in match-making between companies and candidates. The features of a job board and the user experience of listing a role very much shape what candidates see when they browse during the job hunt. After all, your job board makes it possible to search by industry, location, salary range, remote opportunities, and other objective features to aid in the match-making process. This is done with separate data fields that employers fill out when they make a listing. Why not company culture?
Company Culture’s Inconsistent Representation in Job Listings
Normally, we would expect employers to put some company culture details in the job description field. However, it is well-known that not all companies (or recruiters) writing these listings have the same description-writing standards. Some post nothing more than a list of required skills below the job title. Some write a novella including everything from expected tasks to team lunch perks. But even in the detailed and long-winded descriptions, company culture is not always clearly conveyed.
In reality, it takes an insightful manager and skilled writer to clearly represent a team or brand’s internal culture through description text alone. It is this lack of clarity, however, that is exactly where job boards thrive in bridging the gap. Why not develop company culture features with the same objective approach as we do other features of a job like salary, location, and remote work opportunities?
The Questionnaire Approach to Company Culture
What really defines a company’s internal culture? Let’s think specifically in ways that influence whether a candidate will be happy and lasting in a new role. Many candidates care whether they’ll be expected to stay late or leave on-time. Many want to know if hours are rigid or flexible. They want to know if the break room is party time or a place of quiet sandwich contemplation. Just like other factors of a job, many of these elements can be quantified with individual data fields and questionnaire technology.
When an employer is creating a new role listing, we can walk them through a few additional steps to help define each team’s internal culture. Does the team often stay late to finish projects? Yes/No. Does the team regularly socialize after work? Yes/No. Is it a dog-friendly workplace? Yes/No/Only on Fridays. Is there music playing in the office that everyone listens to? If Yes, what genre of music do you play?
The simple asking of these questions will cause employers to reflect on their culture and to share clear, concise details that candidates deeply want to know when making the decision. The answers to these questions can then be displayed to quickly enlighten searching candidates to the real environment they’ll be joining.
Streamlined Cultural Matchmaking
Taking it to the next level, job boards can even help candidates sort by the cultural features they care about most. Once you start asking the questions and listing the answers in data fields, candidates should be able to sort by preference. Those who like office music can suddenly search for workplaces where radios are already the norm. Those who need to go home promptly at 5 can find teams where this is considered responsible instead of uncommitted.
You can offer matchmaking services where candidates take their version of the quiz and receive a list of roles that match their company cultural preferences. Likewise, candidates who fill out their own company cultural data points can be promoted to employers who can see that these professionals would be a better-than-usual fit culturally compared to others who are equally qualified.
Job Boards Changing How Companies Hire for Cultural Fit
Once company culture is refined into data points by job boards, expect to see a rippling change in the industry. Essentially, you are showing companies how to better define their internal culture and share that clearly with new candidates. Recruiters will begin using candidate’s listed cultural preferences to reach out and make connections. Companies and candidates may take your lead and learn how to ask each other the right questions in interviews.
Because company culture has been identified as a statistical factor in candidate bounce-rate, it can be refined down to data points. Job boards are in the unique position to take the lead in accurate and effective company culture matchmaking.
