What is job fit?

Job fit can refer to how well someone’s personality, behaviors, skills and attitude are aligned with a role.

By evaluating job fit, you’re determining if a person is qualified to perform the tasks a job requires, how well you can expect them to perform such tasks and how much they’ll enjoy doing them along the way.

Several factors can come into play when determining job fit, such as a candidate’s previous work experience, educational background, personality type, unique interests and more.

Why job fit matters

Determining how an employee adds to a company’s culture and fits the needs of their role is incredibly important for a number of reasons.

Promotes employee engagement

If a candidate is a great fit for the role, they are more likely to be engaged with the position. Having a true interest and finding real enjoyment in the work they do is likely to increase the quality of their work and their productivity.

Encourages employee retention

When employees feel they are well suited to their role, finding enjoyment and fulfillment from their job and being rewarded for their productivity, they are incentivized to stay at the company and continue to grow there.

Decreasing employee turnover can be a real boon for your business, saving you time and money. It can also increase the institutional knowledge at your organization, which makes onboarding new team members easier.

How to evaluate job fit

There are several ways to determine if a candidate is a good job fit for an open role at your company.

Ask the right questions

The hiring process is a prime time to evaluate job fit. Be as thoughtful as possible when developing interview questions so that you get the best determination possible about how the candidate will fit the role.

For example, if the position requires a fair amount of analytical thinking, you can ask questions that involve taking in information, digesting it and developing an opinion based on what they’ve learned.

If the role requires strong interpersonal connections, you can ask questions that evaluate how the candidate would handle hypothetical situations where they need to navigate different personalities. This can give you insight into how developed their soft skills might be.

Ultimately, interviews are excellent opportunities to dig below the surface of a resume or cover letter and get to know the candidate as a person. What makes them tick? What are their goals? Why are they drawn to this role? Gaining insight into a candidate’s motivations and personal preferences can help you determine how a role might suit them.

By remaining open, curious and creative throughout the interview process, you might be surprised about who turns out to be a good fit for a given role.

Use a job fit assessment

Another common way to determine if a candidate is a strong job fit is to administer an assessment as part of the hiring process.

Assessments can be used to evaluate the candidate’s skills that are relevant to the job. For example, an applicant for a copywriting position might be asked to perform an editing test, or an applicant for a paralegal position might be quizzed on their legal knowledge. If a job requires physical capabilities, a physical fitness test might be helpful in determining if a candidate is the right fit for the role as well.

Another type of job fit assessment to consider is a personality test. Quizzes that give you information about their personality can help you determine a candidate’s aptitude for emotional intelligence. A personality test can also give you information about their ability to step into a leadership role and how they like to collaborate with others. This kind of knowledge can be helpful in determining how a candidate might mesh with the rest of the team as they begin a new role. However, ensure that evaluating how someone may fit in with the culture of your company does not veer into discrimination or other unfair hiring practices.

A balanced team requires a mix of personality types, including introverts, extroverts, leaders and contributors, so make sure that if you use personality tests as a job fit assessment that you’re being mindful of building a diverse team.

Contact candidates’ references

Another helpful way to understand how well someone might be suited to a role is to reach out to references. Request references from past employers, teachers or other people in the candidates’ life that you think might have insight into how they will perform in the role.

Contact each reference, and ask them prepared questions that help you understand the candidate, how they relate to others and the skills they have. Try to gather insight about how you can best manage them if they end up accepting the role.

Job fit can change over time

Determining employee fit is probably most obvious as part of the hiring process, but job fit isn’t a one-and-done consideration. Part of ensuring that your staff members are engaged and inspired is evaluating how their job fit might change over time.

For example, after a year on the job, you might notice that an employee‘s productivity has decreased. That’s a good opportunity to reevaluate their job fit. Has something changed on the team that means they need more support to match their initial productivity? Have they become uninspired and need new challenges in order to truly engage with their role?

Similarly, employees can outgrow their initial roles and might have a better job fit with a more senior position over time. If their skill set has expanded or they’re showing new leadership abilities, it may be time to consider a promotion or adjust their current role so it’s a better fit for them.

Job fit doesn’t always mean a perfect fit

An important consideration when it comes to job fit is that candidates don’t necessarily need to tick every box in order to be well-suited to a role.

By using thoughtful interview skills to get to know candidates, assessments to evaluate their skills and references to understand their wins and challenges in past roles, you can determine if an employee is enough of a fit that they’re worth bringing onto the team and developing.

A team member may be an excellent culture add but may not have developed every single skill needed to hit the ground running on day one of the job. That doesn’t necessarily mean you shouldn’t hire that candidate. Remember, training can make a huge difference. If you believe in a candidate, it’s an opportunity for you to flex your skills as a manager and help that employee learn what they need to in order to grow into their role.