Define the culture as behaviour, measure every candidate the same way, and interview on the differences. Build a free culture fit assessment below, or start with the method.
What culture are you comparing people to?
Culture Fit scores each respondent against the culture this assessment is for. Set it once, in about a minute. You can change it later without re-inviting anyone.
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The short version
Culture fit is the match between how a person prefers to work and how an organisation actually works: its pace, its structure, how decisions get made, and how much of the day is spent with other people. Researchers call it person-organisation fit.
The evidence is clear about what it is good for. People who fit are more satisfied, more committed and slower to leave. They are not reliably better at the job: the link between fit and performance is weak. So a culture fit assessment answers "will this person want to stay here?", and other methods, such as work samples and structured interviews, answer "can they do the work?".
The fairness caveat
What the critics found
The sociologist Lauren Rivera sat in on hiring at elite professional firms and found interviewers rating candidates on shared hobbies, schools and manner, then calling it fit. Assessment vendors make the same point against themselves: HireVue has argued that culture fit is often "a mask for manager fit". The criticism is fair, and it applies to any tool, including ours, that is used without a definition.
The working rule on this page is fit on the essentials, add on the rest. Culture add asks what a person brings that the team lacks. The two belong together.
Assess
Never assess
The method
| Step | What to do |
|---|---|
| 1. Describe the culture as behaviour | Write down how work gets done here: how fast decisions are made, how much process there is, how people disagree. Use the eight dimensions below. "We are like a family" is a slogan, not a description. |
| 2. Pick the two or three that matter for this role | A mismatch on pace may sink a support lead and not matter at all for an analyst. Mark the essentials before you see a candidate, and write down why each one is tied to the job. |
| 3. Measure everyone the same way | Give every candidate the same questionnaire and the same questions in the same order. Consistency is what separates an assessment from an impression. |
| 4. Interview on the gaps | Use the questions below for the dimensions where a candidate differs from the team. Ask for past behaviour, take notes, and score the answers before you compare candidates. |
| 5. Read differences as possible additions | On every dimension you did not mark as essential, a difference is often what the team is missing. Record what the person would add, not only where they match. |
For the interview
Each question asks about behaviour, so a candidate can answer honestly instead of guessing what you want to hear. No answer is wrong. What matters is whether it matches what this role needs. Candidates can turn any of them round and ask the employer.
| Dimension | Questions | Listen for |
|---|---|---|
| Pace Fast or steady |
| Whether a changing pace gave them energy or wore them down. |
| Structure Defined process or open space |
| Whether they treat process as a help or a hurdle by default. |
| Autonomy Self-directed or closely aligned |
| How often, and how deeply, they want someone to check in. |
| Social Energy Together or heads down |
| Whether they think by talking or need quiet first. |
| Risk Tolerance Bold bets or reliable results |
| Whether they can tell a reversible decision from one that is not. |
| Recognition Public or private |
| Which kind of thanks lands, and which has felt hollow. |
| Consensus Agree first or decide fast |
| Which part they play in a split room: caller, listener, mediator or bystander. |
| Mission Orientation Cause, craft or career |
| What keeps them in a job, and whether this role offers it. |
Write one line per dimension straight after each interview, and compare candidates only when everyone has been seen. Read the assessment report last, so the number does not steer the conversation.
The free tool
Name the assessment at the top of this page and you get one link. Send it to candidates, or to your whole team to see the culture you have now. Each person answers 60 questions and keeps their own report. You see eight culture dimensions for each person beside the target you set.
Try it on yourself first
The questionnaire is a 60-item Big Five personality inventory. The eight culture dimensions are fixed combinations of its facets, scored by formula with no AI in the number. Take it yourself to see what your candidates will see. Your own results open on a Work Style report.
The landscape
Tools sold under this name do quite different jobs. Decide which job you need before you compare vendors.
| Kind of tool | What it measures | Best suited to |
|---|---|---|
| Trait-based fit tools this page | Each person's working style, from a personality questionnaire, compared with a target you describe. | Hiring managers who want one consistent measure per candidate and questions for the interview. |
| OCAI Cameron and Quinn | The organisation itself: current and preferred culture across four archetypes (clan, adhocracy, market, hierarchy). | Leadership teams diagnosing the culture before they hire against it. |
| Values and work-style platforms for example MyCulture.ai | A candidate questionnaire on values and work style, compared with a culture profile the employer defines, giving a match score. | Employers whose culture is written down as values. |
| Behavioural assessment suites for example Predictive Index, Criteria | Work-related drives compared with a job target. Culture is one reading among several. | Larger employers buying a full pre-hire suite on contract. |
| Engagement surveys for example Culture Amp | How current employees experience the culture, over time. | People teams tracking the culture they already have. Not a selection tool. |
Descriptions are from each vendor's public pages. We have left prices out because most are quoted per contract. For the wider hiring stack, see our guide to recruitment assessment tools.
Common questions
A culture fit assessment is a structured way to compare how a person prefers to work with how a team or organisation actually works. It can be a questionnaire, a set of interview questions, or both. A sound one describes the culture as behaviour, measures every candidate the same way, and limits "fit" to the few dimensions that matter for the job.
Ask about past behaviour on a specific dimension, for example "When you joined a team with no documented process, what was your first move?", rather than whether the candidate likes your culture. Ask every candidate the same questions, take notes, and rate the answers before you discuss anyone. The 24 questions on this page are grouped by dimension for that purpose.
It can be. When fit is left undefined it tends to mean "people like us". Lauren Rivera's study of elite professional firms found interviewers weighting shared hobbies and backgrounds above skills. The remedy is to define fit as working behaviours tied to the job, measure it consistently, and never use it as the only reason to reject someone.
Culture fit asks whether a person works the way the team already works. Culture add asks what the person brings that the team lacks. They are best used together: screen for fit on the two or three dimensions where a mismatch would hurt the work, and read every other difference as a possible addition.
Only weakly. Reviews of person-organisation fit find that it relates well to job satisfaction, commitment and staying, and much less to how well someone performs (Kristof-Brown and colleagues, 2005; Arthur and colleagues, 2006). Use it to judge whether someone will want to stay, not whether they can do the job.
Yes. You can build a culture fit assessment at the top of the page, send the link, and read reports as people finish. It is free to start and needs no card. Paid plans apply when you want to read more reports than the free allowance covers, and the prices are published.
Yes. The same 60-question test candidates answer is open to anyone, further down this page. Your results open on a Work Style report that describes the pace, structure and amount of collaboration you tend to work best in, which is useful when you are weighing a job offer.
Keep reading
About this page
Michael Hodge, founder of SeeMyPersonality, has run online personality measurement since 2003 and wrote the interview questions on this page. More about the author.
The eight dimensions follow the person-organisation fit research that began with O'Reilly, Chatman and Caldwell. They describe working style and nothing else. We have not run a validity study of the dimensions for any single employer, so treat a report as a prompt for a better interview, never as a decision. For how the underlying model compares with other systems, see personality types explained; plan prices are on the pricing page.
Start here
Define it, measure it the same way for everyone, and keep the differences.