Hiring For Culture Fit (or Add)

You often hear folks say “Hire for culture fit.” (or nowadays, “hire for culture add”).

Cool. But what does that actually mean? And how do you hire for something as seemingly vague as “culture”?

Step 1: Understand Culture Fit vs Culture Add

First off, what the heck does “culture fit” or “culture add” mean? Generally speaking:

“Culture fit” = someone who aligns with how your team already operates

“Culture add” = someone who brings a perspective or behaviour your team needs, but doesn’t currently have

Step 2: Do a Quick Culture Audit

Figure out what your strengths and weaknesses are from a culture perspective:

• What behaviours are rewarded?
• What frustrates people?
• What are your team’s strengths? (e.g. async work, high ownership, rapid shipping)
• What are your team’s weaknesses? (e.g. lack of feedback, over-indexing on speed)

✨ Pro tip: Ask your team. Culture lives in the day-to-day, not a pretty Values poster you hang on the wall or post in Notion.

Step 3: Decide What You Need Right Now

This is the hard (but crucial) part.

Should you double down on a cultural strength (fit)?

Or intentionally add something you’re missing (add)?

What you decide on will depend on the results of your culture audit (Step 2 above), as well as where you want to go as a team.

Let’s walk through it with an example:

🔍 Example Situation

Your team has a culture of moving fast. Scrappy, action-oriented, and iterative.

But…you’re starting to feel the downsides: decisions are made without enough context, nothing gets documented, and people are frustrated.

What should you hire for?

Sure, the dream hire does can both move fast and fix the above issues, but unicorns are rare. We recommend you decide what matters most right now.

• If you’re early-stage and that speed is working?
  
  Double down on it. Hire someone who can keep up the pace (culture fit)
  
  
• If that speed is becoming a liability?
  
  Balance it out. Hire someone who’s more methodical and organized (culture add)
  
  

General Rule of Thumb:

• Smaller teams → Optimize for alignment and momentum
• Growing teams → Prioritize filling cultural gaps and diversifying thought

There’s no perfect formula. Your context should drive this call.

Step 4: Bake Culture Into Your Hiring Process

Once you’ve decided what you need (fit or add) bake it into how you hire.

You’ve got two approaches:

🅰️ Option A: Dedicated “Culture Interview” Round

This is a separate interview round focused specifically on values and working style.

Not a bad place to start, but wouldn’t recommend you stop there…

🅱️ Option B: Bake Culture Into Every Step (Recommended)

Weave culture into every part of your hiring process.

• Insert “moments of culture” into your Careers page, job postings, and comms candidates receive (e.g, don’t copy-paste a job posting spits out. Not without first adding your own flare to it at least).
• Assign interviewers specific culture-related behaviours to evaluate

This approach:

1. Gives your team a realistic view of the candidate
2. Gives the candidate a realistic view of your culture (just as important as #1)

🎯 Step 5: Make the Hire, With Intention

You’ve done the hard work (yay). Now put it all together and hire that stud.

• Use scorecards to anchor your decision
• Look past likability and focus on values and contribution
• Ask: Will this person reinforce what’s working, or stretch us in a way we need?

Culture isn’t something that just happens. It’s a strategic decision that is well within your power to craft, if done thoughtfully.