Matching Candidates to Culture: How Assessments of Organisational Fit Shape the Hiring Process

Abstract

Organisational fit represents a crucial criterion in the hiring process. This article aims to understand how employers and external recruitment consultants define and apply organisational fit in professional labour markets, such as engineering, marketing and finance. It also investigates how the use of organisational fit in hiring can lead to social bias within these labour markets. It relies on semi-structured interviews with 47 external recruitment consultants who assist employers in these sectors. The article draws on Relational Inequality Theory to demonstrate how hiring managers and consultants use organisational fit to create and justify boundaries between acceptable and unacceptable candidates. Claim-making supports the rationalisation and legitimisation in the exclusion of groups of candidates. The article critically informs human resource management, business and psychology literature that perceive organisational fit as a largely benign criterion for recruitment. It also extends sociological and critical management literature by delineating three main exclusionary mechanisms in matching candidates for organisational fit.

Exploring the Concept of Cultural Fit and its Impact on Positive Organizational Outcomes

“…The authors suggest that P-O fit relationships may differ across countries due to variations in societal values. A most recent study by Tholen (2023) explores the concept of cultural fit and its implications in organizational settings. The author emphasizes the importance of assessing organizational fit during the selection process and discusses the potential consequences of misalignment between individuals and organizational culture.…”

Personality Discrimination and the Wrongness of Hiring Based on Extraversion

“…Scholars from a recent study (Tholen, 2023) interviewed external recruitment consultants about organizational fit and found that recruiters frequently defined personality as sociability, often understood as being on the extroverted side of the introvert-extrovert continuum. Employers, according to recruiters, desired candidates who were outgoing, talkative, energetic, or naturally inclined to interact with others.…”

“…Employers, according to recruiters, desired candidates who were outgoing, talkative, energetic, or naturally inclined to interact with others. 2 One recruiter stated that "somebody who is just interested in coming and sitting in the corner all day doing design calculations and not interacting with anybody isn't going to fit in that well" (Tholen, 2023).…”