Short answer: Write down your company's pace, decision style and tolerance for ambiguity, then test candidates on a real problem in that environment. Gut feel is your mind sensing something it hasn't named. Name it first, then test it, instead of trusting or ignoring it.
I'm Vinay Pasricha. I run GoodSpace AI, a hiring company in Noida, and I wrote Organizational Frequency. "I just had a feeling about them" is the most common reason founders give for a hire, and one of the most expensive.
What "culture fit" usually means
Ask ten founders what culture fit means and many will describe, without meaning to, someone who looks like them, talks like them and agrees with them. That isn't fit. It's sameness, and it shuts out good people while letting in people who are pleasant in an interview and wrong in the work.
In the book I use a different idea: frequency. Every company has a characteristic pace, decision style, tolerance for ambiguity and way of thinking and working. Every person has one too. Fit means the two resonate, not that the person resembles you.
Why personality tests and gut feel both miss
Personality tests measure traits out of context. The same person can work very differently in different environments, so a score tells you little about how they'll work in yours. Gut feel has the opposite problem: it is full of context, but you can't see what it is reacting to. It might be noticing something real, or it might be reacting to an accent, a college or a confident manner.
Name your frequency first
Before you can test anyone, write one page about your own company, with two or three people who have done well there:
- Pace. How fast do decisions get made? How fast is work expected?
- Decision style. Who decides? How much gets written down? Decide-then-tell, or ask-then-decide?
- Ambiguity. How much does a new person have to work out on their own?
- Disagreement. How do people disagree, and how is it settled?
That page is the standard you test against. Until it exists, every hire is a guess.
Then test in the environment
- Use a real problem. Something your team actually faced recently, with the same messy information and the same time pressure.
- Watch how they work, not only what they answer. Do they ask for more structure or make their own? Do they decide or wait?
- Let them meet the real team. The manager and two future colleagues, not just you.
- Name what your gut is sensing. If you feel unsure, write down why, and check it against the page.
One thing to do this week
Write the one-page description of your company's frequency. Then look at your current interview process and mark which steps actually test any of the four points. Most companies find none do. The free Find your organizational frequency self-reflection is a good place to start.
Where this comes from
This answer draws on two parts of Organizational Frequency: Stage i · Understand your own frequency and What it is not: culture fit, personality tests, gut feel. The book is on Kindle.
To ask about your own hiring, try Ask Vinay's books.
Vinay Pasricha is the founder of GoodSpace AI and the author of six books, including Organizational Frequency.
