How to Determine if an Employee Is the Right Fit for Your Health Club

If you are going through the time and energy to recruit and hire a new employee for an open position, then there is no doubt your hope is to retain the employee so they can productively contribute to your business.

Hiring a candidate that will fit in your organization will have a direct impact on employee retention.

Sometimes, the candidate has the right skills, but will they be the right fit? Starting with the interview process, I concentrate on separating the interview questions into two sections:

• Person-to-Job
• Person-to-Organization

Person-to-Job Fit

Person-to-Job questions are related to skills, years of experience, and levels of knowledge. In other words, what skills should the employee have to help achieve your strategic plan objectives?

Asking questions to determine Person-to-Job fit is relatively straightforward. Starting with the end in mind and keeping the organizations strategic plan in focus are integral parts of the interview process.

Person-to-Organization Fit

Determining Person-to-Organization fit is a bit more challenging.

Person-to-Organization is defined as “congruence of an individual’s beliefs and values with the culture, norms, and values of an organization.”

As the interviewer, you will need to understand mission, culture, and core values of your organization. Make sure candidates also clearly understand this about your company and that you are asking the kinds of questions that will best determine fit for your organizational values.

There are hundreds of interview questions that you can search online that will help you determine fit, but it is important the questions are unique to your organization’s core values.

Similarly, candidates can research and be coached on interview questions. It takes some planning to know what you are looking for in the answers so you are not misled by canned responses. I find that the question after the initial question elicits more information about the candidate to help determine if the candidate’s values match company values.

For example, one of Zappos core values is “Deliver Wow Through Service.” A question they ask is, “What does great customer service mean to you?”

The follow-up question is the question that will give you further insight. For example, “Give me an example of how you provided the customer service you described and how did you know the customer was wowed?”

Questions to Determine if the Candidate is a Good Fit

Focusing questions on your company’s core values is important; however, there are general questions to determine if the position being offered is what the candidate is looking for and, therefore, a good fit. For example:

• Why did you apply for this position? How does this position fit into your long-term career goals?
• What are your expectations of the leadership of this company? What are your expectations of your direct supervisor?
• How would your most recent supervisor or co-workers describe you?
• What role do you find yourself in when working on team projects? Give an example of a team project you completed in this role.
• Combine Person-to-Job and Person-to-Organization questions in the interviewing process.

Person-to-Job can be measured by how well the person performs in the job. While Person-to-Organization can be more difficult to measure, increased employee tenure has been proven to be a direct result of finding the right fit.