Is your company highly creative when it comes to the recruitment process? In today’s world, it’s becoming increasingly more popular for companies to come up with unique and sometimes even hilarious ways of recruiting people. Weird and unusual interview questions, activities, and quirky corporate cultures often come into play.

However, in some cases an unusual hiring process or corporate culture can create challenges when it comes to identifying candidates who are the right fit for the organization. The quirky company culture that you love can backfire. Some candidates may be taken aback by the process that you use to select and interview them. They may even refuse to apply for jobs out of fear that they won’t fit in well with the set of values and ideas your corporate culture embraces.

Your company may be quirky if:

• You have an elaborate application process that uses humor in many places
• You use odd or silly interview questions and tasks for candidates
• The work environment is highly creative and filled with lots of playful features

So, if you identified your company as unusual or different in terms of the type of culture you embrace, it’s possible that it’s becoming difficult to find the right candidates. Here are some ways that you can get around this and hire the best talent with the right candidate fit.

Be upfront about your corporate culture

When thinking recruitment, the last thing you want to do is spring a surprise on a candidate – not the least of which should be your corporate culture. Have access to some marketing materials that highlight your corporate culture with visuals and audio tools. Slowly introduce candidates to your corporate culture. Watch for their reaction. If a candidate reels back suddenly upon learning about your corporate culture, there’s a good chance they will not be a good fit

Focus on the candidate experience

There is a lot of research around the impact the candidate experience has on the long-term success of an employee. This should be your ultimate focus when you are interviewing prospective employees. Try to put yourself into the candidate shoes for a moment. Is the application process intuitive? Is the candidate exposed to a positive impression of your company? Is the recruitment team proactively reaching out and then following up with each candidate? Make sure to zip up all of these things in order to improve the candidate experience.

Assess candidate skills with industry testing

It can be very difficult to determine if a candidate is right for the job within the span of just a few moments of reviewing a resume and meeting with them in an interview. Do not expect some quirky or challenging project assigned during an interview to accurately define a candidate’s suitability for your company. Instead, work with your staffing agency to use candidate assessment testing to validate their work-related skills, personality, and corporate culture fit.

Use a multi-layer interview process

Sometimes, creative companies do not spend enough time evaluating the behavioral aspects of candidate interviews. This is why a multiple interview process that includes several layers of team member participation is often a great way to determine a candidate’s fit for the company. People often have different perspectives when meeting someone, therefore, take the time to have at least a few of the team members present during initial interviews. Gather objective feedback and use this for making your hiring decision.

Hire temps first, employees second

Perhaps one of the best ways to recruit for a quirky company is to start everyone out as a temporary employee. This gives your company a chance to benefit from pre-screened candidates who will then have to prove themselves within the first few months on the job. Most staffing agencies have very strict pre-screening requirements and will only send candidates who they believe will be a good fit. If you have a problem with a candidate you can then easily replace them with someone more suitable. This reduces the risk of hiring the wrong person.

Want to learn more about how your company culture could affect your hiring process, or find temps to fit in with your quirky company? Contact Advance Staffing Solutions today!