What is Culture Fit? And How Do You Interview for It?

Corporate culture shapes how employees interact, collaborate, and align with a company's goals. 

The importance of this culture is clear—it’s the second most important factor candidates consider when choosing an employer.

For employers, cultural fit drives success beyond just reducing recruiting and onboarding costs. When candidates truly align with company values, they engage more deeply with their work, show higher productivity, and find greater satisfaction in their roles—all of which lead to increased profitability.

This Willo guide explores how to assess culture fit during your hiring process to build happier, more cohesive teams.

What Is Culture Fit?

Companies traditionally focus on technical skills and experience when hiring—the job fit. Yet cultural fit proves equally crucial for long-term success.

Culture fit measures how well candidates align with your company's values, mission, and work environment. It extends beyond shared values to determine whether candidates will thrive within your team, drive goals forward, and champion the company's long-term vision.

Why is hiring for culture fit important? 

Culture fit directly impacts business success by creating alignment between employees and organizations. When you hire candidates who share your company's vision, values, and work ethic, you gain several key advantages:

• Higher employee productivity: Studies from the University of Warwick demonstrate that satisfied employees are 12% more productive than their peers. When team members align with company culture, they engage more deeply and consistently deliver stronger results.
• Thriving work environment: Strong cultural alignment creates positive, collaborative atmospheres where both employees and business outcomes flourish. While average employee engagement globally is 23%, organizations with strong cultures see engagement as high as 70%.
• Stable, cohesive teams: Cultural fit strengthens team dynamics and retention. Companies with strong cultural alignment have demonstrated impressive growth. Some organizations see 25% workforce expansion over three years while maintaining stable, supportive environments.
•  Innovation and profitability: When employees connect deeply with company culture, they contribute fresh perspectives and innovative solutions more readily. The impact is measurable—organizations prioritizing culture have seen up to 85% increases in net profit over five years.

How to Interview for Culture Fit

Now that we’ve established why culture fit is so essential, the next logical question is… how do you assess it during the hiring process?

Unlike technical skills, culture fit is less tangible and harder to measure. However, by using the right interview techniques and asking the right questions, you can get a clear sense of whether a candidate will integrate well with your company culture.

Let’s see some effective strategies for interviewing with culture fit in mind. 

1. Define your company’s culture clearly

Define your company's culture clearly Before you can assess candidates on culture fit, you need a clear understanding of what your culture actually looks like. For mature companies, this work may already be done, but startups often need to systematically define their culture. 

Ask yourself: 

• What drives your company's mission? 
• What values guide your decisions? 
• What kind of work environment are you building? 
• Which behaviors do your most successful teams exhibit?

2. Communicate your company’s culture to candidates 

Once you've defined your culture, share it openly across all recruitment channels—from your website and job postings to social media. Be transparent about your company's culture, team dynamics, work environment, and potential challenges.

This transparency serves two purposes: it helps candidates self-assess their fit before applying, and it sets clear expectations for those who move forward. The result? A stronger candidate pool and higher chances of making successful, long-term hires.

3. Screen applicants for culture fit

With your company culture defined, evaluate candidates against these standards. 

Focus on identifying values, behaviors, and attitudes that match your organization's core principles. Blend standard and behavioral interview questions to assess cultural alignment and ensure candidates will excel in your environment.

Standard interview questions

These interview questions reveal a candidate's authentic values, experiences, and reactions to workplace scenarios:

• "Why choose our company over competitors?"
• "What work environment helps you excel?"
• "Describe overcoming a challenge outside your comfort zone"
• "What makes team collaboration valuable to you?"
• "How do you navigate high-pressure situations?"
• "What drives your professional growth?"
• "How do you maintain accountability in autonomous roles?"

Behavioral interview questions

These questions uncover demonstrated cultural traits through specific past examples:

• "Walk me through your approach to ensuring clear communication with your team members?"
• "Tell me about adapting a project to unexpected changes"
• "Share a leadership mistake and how you resolved it"
• "Describe going beyond expectations for a customer. What happened?"
• "How have you bridged cultural differences in team settings?"
• "Share a time you drove innovation adoption. What approach worked?"
• "Tell me about standing by an unpopular but principled decision"

These questions will provide insight into how candidates demonstrate behaviors that align with your company’s culture, helping you ensure a stronger cultural fit.

How Willo enhances culture fit screening

One of the biggest challenges when screening for culture fit is giving candidates enough space to express themselves authentically. Willo helps solve this challenge through our asynchronous video interview feature.

With Willo, you can send customized interview questions to candidates and allow them to record their responses at their convenience—eliminating the pressure of a live interview. 

Source: How Async Video Interviews Helped Endava Hire 60 Interns in 1 Month

Our asynchronous interviews are so effective because every candidate is assessed using the same set of questions and amount of time, eliminating scheduling conflicts and the potential for interviewer bias. For example, Endava leveraged this to interview 400 candidates, hiring 60 while saving 100 hours. 

4. Observe and evaluate candidates’ responses

Once you’ve asked the right questions, the next step is to assess how candidates respond. This goes beyond their answers—it’s about understanding their authenticity, communication style, and overall alignment with your company culture.

Here are the key areas to focus on: 

• Authenticity: Do candidates share genuine experiences with confidence, or do their answers feel rehearsed? Look for natural, honest responses that reveal their true working style.
• Value alignment: Listen for examples that demonstrate your company's core values. If collaboration matters to you, do their stories show effective teamwork? If innovation is key, do they share examples of creative problem-solving?
• Adaptability: How do candidates approach challenges? Strong cultural fits solve problems while staying true to core values, even under pressure.
• Communication style: Notice how candidates express ideas and respond to questions. Do they show openness to feedback? Would their style mesh with your team dynamics?
• Emotional intelligence: Assess how candidates handle conflict, manage emotions, and work with others. High EQ often predicts success in diverse work environments.

Using Willo’s scorecards for consistent evaluation

Evaluating candidates based on pre-defined criteria ensures fairness and consistency in the process. With Willo’s customizable Scorecards, you can assess key cultural traits that are important to your company in a consistent, objective manner. 

Source: Willo scorecards

Additionally, you can easily compare candidate rankings either as a group or one-to-one, making it simpler to make informed decisions. 

5. Make informed hiring decisions

By this stage, you should have a clear picture of how each candidate aligns with both your culture and the role's requirements. 

Focus on making a well-rounded decision that considers both elements:

• Cultural alignment: Review how closely the candidate's values and behaviors match your company culture. Look for examples from their interviews that demonstrate this fit.
• Technical fit: Confirm their skills and experience meet the role's demands. The strongest hires excel in both culture and capability.
• Team input: Gather perspectives from everyone involved in the recruitment process. Different viewpoints often reveal important insights about candidate fit.

This balanced approach helps you select candidates who will thrive both in their role and within your broader company culture.

Conclusion

Hiring for culture fit builds stronger, more cohesive teams. When you clearly define your culture, ask the right questions, and carefully evaluate candidates, you create alignment between new hires and your organization's values.

Willo's asynchronous interviews and Scorecards streamline this process, helping you make objective, data-driven hiring decisions.

Ready to hire the right fit for your team? Sign up on Willo today for free.