Interview Questions for Culture Fit: How to Create Your Own?

Why not take someone else's questions?

While popular platforms like Indeed and Glassdoor provide lists of standard interview questions, these questions often focus on assessing general soft skills rather than evaluating alignment with your unique company culture. To truly gauge the cultural fit of potential candidates, it is essential to design customized interview questions tailored specifically to your organization.

In this article, we will guide you through the process of creating your own interview questions that reflect your company's distinctive culture. We will delve into the importance of aligning interview questions with your cultural values and explore how scoring candidates based on their answers can help you identify individuals who will thrive within your organization.

1. Defining your company culture.

Establishing a solid foundation for assessing culture fit begins with a clear understanding of your company's unique culture. To effectively evaluate candidates, it is crucial to define your company culture in specific terms, either as a set of core values or, for a more comprehensive approach, a list of cultural principles.

Let's take a look at some cultural principles of Npcat, as an illustrative example for this article:

1. Start with "Why?": At Npcat, we believe in the power of purpose-driven work. Our cultural principle of "Start with 'Why?'" emphasizes the importance of understanding the underlying motivation and impact behind every task or project. We value employees who are curious, seek meaning in their work, and align their actions with the greater purpose of our organization.
2. Act like an owner: Ownership mentality is a fundamental aspect of our company culture. We encourage our team members to take ownership of their responsibilities, projects, and decisions. Acting like an owner at Npcat means demonstrating a sense of accountability, taking initiative, and actively contributing to the growth and success of our organization.
3. The best is where it's scary: We embrace a culture of continuous growth and innovation at Npcat. Our belief is that the most rewarding opportunities lie beyond our comfort zones. This cultural principle encourages our employees to push boundaries, embrace challenges, and pursue excellence in their work. We value individuals who thrive in dynamic and fast-paced environments, where innovation and calculated risk-taking are celebrated.

Your own organization should have its own unique set of values or principles that reflect its identity. If you haven't defined your company culture yet, it is essential to do so before proceeding to the next step.

2. Crafting culture-fit interview questions.

Once you have a clear definition of your company's values or principles, the next step is to create specific questions that can effectively evaluate whether a candidate shares and aligns with these cultural aspects.

Let's dive into the process of crafting culture-fit interview questions using the example of Npcat Co.'s principles mentioned earlier.

Start with "Why?"

To evaluate a candidate's fit to this cultural principle the questions could be like:

• "How do you typically approach learning something new? Do you prioritize understanding the basic principles behind it?"
• "Imagine your boss assigns you a task that you perceive as unnecessary. How would you handle the situation?"
• "Suppose a friend suggests implementing a cool feature for a product you are working on. What would be your actions?"

Act like an owner

For this cultural principle we might come up with the following:

• "In your opinion, who holds the most responsibility for the success of a product: the designer, the developer, or the CEO? Why do you think so?"
• "If you come across an issue or problem in the product that falls outside your area of responsibility, what would you do?"

The best is where it's scary

For this cultural principle we might craft something like:

• "How do you feel when faced with the prospect of doing something completely new or outside your comfort zone? Can you provide an example?"
• "Tell us about a time when you took on a challenge that initially seemed intimidating or scary. What motivated you to embrace it despite the fear?"

These questions are designed to elicit responses that reveal a candidate's alignment with the cultural principles of Npcat. They provide insights into their mindset, behavior, and decision-making processes, allowing you to assess their compatibility with your company culture.

In the following sections, we will explore how to evaluate candidates' answers to these questions and assign numerical scores to effectively compare and measure their culture fit.

3. Evaluating candidates culture-fit with numbers.

Once you have crafted your culture-fit interview questions, it's time to put them into action during the interview process. As each candidate responds to the questions, it's essential to evaluate their answers and assign a rating on a scale of 0 to 2, based on your satisfaction level. This rating system allows you to quantitatively assess the degree to which a candidate's answer aligns with the desired values or principles.

Here's an example of how you can structure the evaluation process using a spreadsheet:

By assigning scores for each candidate's answers, you can objectively measure their level of culture fit numerically. This data-driven approach enables you to make informed decisions based on the candidate's alignment with your company's cultural values or principles, rather than relying solely on personal feelings or subjective judgments.

Once you have completed the interviews and recorded the scores, you can use the total score for each candidate to gain a holistic understanding of their culture fit. This numerical representation empowers you to compare candidates objectively and make well-informed hiring decisions.

Conclusion

When evaluating candidates for culture fit, avoid relying on someone else's generic questions taken from the internet. Instead, invest time in designing your own questions for each culture value or principle of your company.

Designing such questions may require some upfront investment of time and resources. However, this investment pays off in the long run by streamlining the interview process and enabling more accurate recruitment decisions.

Taking a numerical approach to evaluate candidates' answers allows for data-driven decision-making. By assigning scores to each response, you can objectively measure and compare candidates' culture fit.