22 Cultural Fit Questions for Video Assessments

Employers today recognize that it’s not just enough for candidates to be competent, have an impressive academic background or an extensive skill set. When assessing candidates, it’s just as important to gauge whether they can fit seamlessly into the culture of your organization. Recruiters have now begun looking for candidates who don’t only possess the desired skills or work ethic, but are also cultural fits.

What is a cultural fit anyway? And what makes this aspect a central component of hiring decisions? A candidate qualifies as a cultural fit if a recruiter feels that they can embody the organization’s core values, one who fits in like a glove within the environment and can take the company’s vision forward.

You might ask, why is this important if the employee has a drool-worthy profile, understands the requirements of their role and can produce quality work? The simple truth is, it matters. It matters because the culture or environment of a company reflects directly on the standard of an employee’s performance. A culture that they can easily embrace and be in agreement with will cause them to flourish while a culture that they are disenchanted by or struggle to identify with, will negatively affect their performance and commitment levels.

When evaluating candidates during recruitment, it’s always wise to throw in some questions that test the candidates on this aspect and video interviews can be leveraged to serve this purpose aptly.

With video interviews, you have the option of taking a live interview or sending the candidate a series of questions to which they can record video responses. You can pace the interview according to your requirements, set a time limit for answers or simply leave it to the candidate’s discretion to record their responses. Some questions will be direct and straightforward while others might require some degree of reflection; try to include both in your assessments.

The questions you ask to assess cultural aptitude will obviously depend on the specific values you want to test them on. While each company’s set of values differs, there are certain universal values that hold significance for each company such as honesty, collaboration, openness to change, leadership, innovation and resilience.

Here are some questions you can ask to test the candidate on the values that they hold dear and their compatibility with the values that are most important to you.

Their Core Values

1.What is the ideal working environment for you?
2. Which value of ours do you identify with the most?
3. Tell us about a time when you didn’t like the working environment in a place. What didn’t you like about it?
4. What is your main motivation to work at a company?
5. Tell us about an ethical dilemma you have faced. How did you resolve it?

Teamwork and Collaboration

6. Do you prefer working alone or as part of a team?
7. Tell us a about a poor team work experience you’ve had and an effective one. Why were the outcomes different?
8. Do you like to mingle with people or do you prefer to keep to yourself?
9. In your opinion, what should employee relations be like?
10. How do you approach disagreements with seniors? Tell us about an instance where you experienced conflict with a senior and how you went about it.

Leadership Skills

11. Tell us about an instance where you were in a leadership role. What kind of a leader were you?
12. Which leadership style is the best in your opinion?
13. How do you manage conflict in a team?
14. How do you accommodate for diversity in a team?

Tech-Savviness

15. How do you incorporate technology into your work? What softwares or applications do you use to assist you with your work?

Openness to Change

16. Do you play safe or are you a risk taker?
17. Do you stick to convention or do you believe in being innovative?
18. How would you overcome resistance to a new idea at the workplace?

Passion and Commitment

19. Do you believe in doing just what’s required or would you rather go the extra mile?
20. How good are you at multi-tasking?
21. How do you prioritize your tasks?

Resilience

22. Tell us about a time you experienced failure. How did you take it?

These questions can give the recruiter quite a good idea of whether the candidate is in sync with their company’s cultural make-up. They test the candidate on various cultural facets, allowing the recruiter to piece together the kind of environment the candidate is most likely to have a preference for.

If you feel the responses are in line with what you’re looking for, great! What more could you want? If however, you feel that the candidate’s sensibilities don’t agree with your company’s core beliefs and values, you might want to reconsider.

Of course, that in no way means that the candidate is unworthy or incapable; it simply means that they’d thrive better at a culture different from what your company can offer. In the long run, consideration of cultural aptitude will serve you and your candidate well. So be sure to get it out of the way!