How to Hire for Your Values

Company values are meant to guide every employee toward the goals of the business. They’re a north star to refer back to and they determine the course of your organization.

Company values shape both your long-term targets and day-to-day work. When in doubt about any decision: look back to the values.

Our values

At Recruiting From Scratch, we have five values that drive our days:

1. Initiative:

We’re a team of doers. We’re self-starters who take initiative to work efficiently and get things done.

2. Teamwork:

We believe in openness, transparency, and helping each other succeed.

3. Reliability:

We show up for our partners to ensure we are consistently connecting top talent to top organizations.

4. Adaptability:

We’re excited to be part of a growing team that fiercely pursues new opportunities and goals.

5. Learning:

We’re life-long learners who never have all the answers. Our culture of growth prioritizes consistently learning and constantly developing.

How to go about identifying your values.

There is no “best” way to identify your company’s values, but one place to start (and the method we used here at RFS) is to survey leadership on the traits of successful employees and compare lists. This sheds light on what makes your company thrive and from there, you can extract your values. For example, if you find that your most successful employees ask a lot of questions, curiosity may be one of your values.

Another approach is to assess the culture of your company. Ask people inside and outside to describe it in a couple words. Identify your strengths. Speak with leadership about what values they would like to see and whether the company currently abides by them.

Lastly, you can identify your values by determining what company culture is necessary to meet your goals. If your goal is to build a diverse team, your value is inclusivity.

Implementation starts from the top.

Now that you know your values, you might wonder how to implement them. Simply put, it’s about demonstrating through action and continual repetition - and this starts with leadership. For example:

• Applaud team members who practice the values. If your value is collaboration, make an effort to call it out when you see a team member respecting a colleague’s idea. Create a message board to highlight values in action. This shows your team that they are present and active in the day-to-day operations.
• Make your values the north star for making any decision. Have team members refer here when they have a question or problem. Before reaching out for assistance, can the values help you come to a conclusion? This way, team members won’t just know the values - they’ll be practicing them.
• Mention them as often as you can. Any time a team is gathered or you’re setting goals, talk about how values play a role.
• Hire for your values. Choose candidates who demonstrate what you stand for as a company, further strengthening foundation of your business.

Hiring for your values works them deeper into your culture.

The most effective way to hire for your values is to ask questions or give assessments during the interview process. If your value is accountability, you can ask candidates how they dealt with mistakes at work in the past.

You could also create assessments that put your values into practice. If you value creativity, you can have candidate formulate an original content idea. Hiring for your values not only reinforces them but allows you to find the most aligned collaborators for your company.

Need help hiring? Visit us at Recruiting From Scratch to get started.