At successful businesses, hiring means more than ticking off checkboxes related to experience and education. A job candidate can hit all the right notes – a perfect blend of previous job tasks, degrees, and specialized training – and yet still fail in your business.

While a failed hire can occur for any number of reasons, the answer is usually simple: a failure to fit in with your organizational Culture. It’s not always easy to identify a business’s culture, and it’s often a challenge to pin down in terms applicants understand.

What Is Organizational Culture?

Every organization has an underlying culture derived from multiple sources. The culture within an office often starts with the original leadership and evolves based on employee relationships, business success, public perception, and company objectives. Organizational culture consists of a complex and dynamic set of principles unique to a particular workplace. Some workplaces are conservative, rigid, and highly structured, while others are laid back, casual, and independent.

There’s no right or wrong model of organizational culture, but not all cultures are right for all employees. While poorly matched employees can fit into a culture for a while, those who feel uncomfortable and out of place are probably going to move on sooner rather than later.

Defining Candidate Fit

In hiring, managers need to be aware of two distinct principles: Job Fit and culture fit. Job fit, which refers to a candidate’s technical skills as related to a job’s requirements, is a key element in the hiring process. Culture fit, or a candidate’s ability to mesh with the organizational culture, however, is worthy of focus as well.

While job fit is often the first point considered, both are equally important to the bottom line, especially in small to medium-sized enterprises with limited hiring resources. After all, each hiring mistake costs between 30% and 150% of the first years salary per failed hire. An emphasis on job fit ensures that tasks get done properly and on time, helping to save your company from the burdens involved in retraining, redoing shoddy work, and rehiring when things ultimately don’t work out. Culture fit keeps good employees in place over time, fostering an environment that improves retention and builds a strong, stable workforce.

Evaluating Your Potential Workforce

So, besides an interview, how can you properly assess the applicants in your pipeline in terms of culture fit?

For large companies, the answer has long been personality tests. Seen as a good way to automatically sift through a mass number of applications, hiring managers have now found a second benefit: culture/person fit evaluation. By using a simple test interface, companies can learn more about applicants’ attitudes, preferred workplace dynamics, and even work preferences, allowing insight into the probability of a good fit before so much as scheduling an interview.

With tools like Whozwho, companies of all sizes can analyze the compatibility of an applicant from the first point of contact, creating a streamlined, efficient way to take a holistic approach to job applications. With tools to compare everything from job history to personality, it’s easier than ever to find your perfect match.

Find Your Fit

While job fit is often the key to the outer barricades, culture fit is the secret to the inner circle. With the ability to evaluate both job fit and culture fit, tools like Whozwho can help your company improve hiring practices, save money, and build a happy, healthy workplace.

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