Tag: recruitment

Why “culture fit” gets a bad rap – and how to rescue it

Posted on by admin

“Culture fit” started as shorthand for hiring people who help your culture thrive. Somewhere along the way, it became code for “people like us”: same background, same schools, same hobbies, same vibe.

That’s not culture. That’s comfort.

Social psychology has shown for decades that humans naturally gravitate toward people who look, think and act like them – the similarity-attraction effect. In hiring, this turns into affinity bias: we rate candidates who remind us of ourselves as “strong fits”, even when that has nothing to do with performance. 

The cost is real:

When “culture fit” really means “same as us”, you’re literally screening out the conditions that drive innovation, resilience and problem-solving.

So instead of abandoning culture fit altogether, it’s time to redefine it.

What culture fit should mean: The 3-C model

Think of culture fit as three overlapping checks:

Core values + Character additions + Collaboration potential

When all three are present, culture fit becomes growth-friendly – not a homogeneity trap.

1. Core values – shared anchors, not clones

This is the only part of “fit” that should feel similar.

You’re looking for alignment on the fundamentals of how work gets done: things like integrity, accountability, learning mindset, respect, psychological safety, and commitment to the mission.

Research on values congruence shows that when people’s values align with the organisation’s, you tend to see higher engagement, commitment and performance.

What to look for

  • How they behave under pressure, not just when things are smooth
  • How they talk about colleagues, customers and past employers
  • Whether they default to learning and accountability or blame and defensiveness

Better questions

  • “Tell me about a time you got feedback you really didn’t like. What did you do next?”
  • “Describe a situation where you had to choose between hitting a target and doing the right thing. What happened?”
  • “What does ‘a good day at work’ look like for you – and why?”

You’re testing: do their lived values match the ones you say matter here? Not “would I have a beer with them?”

2. Character additions – difference as a performance asset

Once values are aligned, sameness stops helping and starts hurting.

Decades of work in organisational psychology and economics – from Cox and Blake’s “value-in-diversity” hypothesis to Scott Page’s Diversity Bonus – argues that diverse teams solve complex problems better because they bring more cognitive tools, perspectives and heuristics. 

Meta-analyses back this up: deep-level diversity (differences in perspectives, information and ways of thinking) is positively related to creativity and innovation, especially for interdependent, knowledge-heavy work. 

So the question shifts from “Are they like us?” to: “What do they bring that we don’t already have – and will that help us?”

What to look for

  • Different backgrounds, disciplines or industries that still connect to your work
  • Distinct problem-solving approaches (data-first, systems-thinking, customer-obsessed, etc.)
  • Evidence of resilience, non-linear careers, or stretching into new contexts

Better questions

  • “Tell me about a time you had to work on something completely unfamiliar. How did you approach it?”
  • “What’s a perspective you hold at work that people often initially disagree with – and why do you keep holding it?”
  • “Where do you think this team is at risk of groupthink? What would you challenge first?”

Here, a great answer should make you slightly uncomfortable – in a good way.

3. Collaboration potential – will they make the team better together?

The last C is about how they operate in the system.

Google’s Project Aristotle and Amy Edmondson’s research on psychological safety show that the highest-performing teams aren’t the ones with the “best” individuals – they’re the ones where people feel safe to speak up, admit mistakes and challenge ideas. 

Collaboration potential is your read on whether this person will contribute to – or damage – that environment.

What to look for

  • Examples of constructive conflict and resolution
  • Evidence they give and receive feedback without spiralling
  • Signs they adapt their style to different people, not just expect others to adapt to them

Better questions

  • “Tell me about a time you worked with someone very different from you. What made it hard, and how did you make it work?”
  • “Describe a conflict in a team that turned out well. What did you do differently to help?”
  • “When a colleague points out a mistake you’ve made, what usually happens next?”

You’re looking for people who can disagree without contempt, and who treat collaboration as a skill, not an accident.

Why this matters for both employers and candidates

For employers

Teams built on shared values + diverse strengths + strong collaboration are better positioned to:

  • Generate more and better ideas
  • Adapt faster when markets or technology change
  • Avoid stagnation and groupthink
  • Attract and retain people who want to grow, not coast

Large-scale evidence now shows that diverse, inclusive top teams are more likely to outperform financially – not by a tiny margin, but by double-digit percentages. 

For candidates

A redefined culture fit means:

  • You’re not penalised for thinking differently, speaking with a different accent, or taking a non-linear career path
  • Your values matter more than whether you match an unwritten “type”
  • You’re more likely to land somewhere that uses your strengths, not just asks you to blend in

How to build real culture fit into your hiring process

This is where behavioural science and selection science really help.

1. Define your core values in observable behaviours

“Team player” and “good communicator” are meaningless without detail. Translate values into specific behaviours you can see in stories:

  • “Accountability” = owns mistakes early, closes the loop, doesn’t hide bad news
  • “Learning mindset” = seeks feedback, experiments, reflects, adjusts
  • “Transparency” = shares context, explains decisions, not just outcomes

Use these to design your interview questions and evaluation rubrics.

2. Use structured, value-based interviews (and stick to them)

Unstructured “vibe checks” feel insightful but are not very predictive of performance and are highly vulnerable to bias. 

Meta-analyses show that structured interviews – same core questions for all candidates, tied to job-relevant competencies and scored against clear criteria – have significantly higher validity for predicting job performance and tend to reduce adverse impact compared with many other methods. 

Practically:

  • Ask every candidate a consistent set of value and collaboration questions
  • Use scoring guides (e.g. 1–5) with behavioural anchors
  • Discuss scores before swapping impressions like “they just felt like a fit”

This doesn’t kill humanity in hiring; it just stops bias running the show.

3. Deliberately hire for “character additions”

In your shortlists, ask:

  • “What does this person add – in perspective, experience, thinking – that we don’t already have?”
  • “If we reject them, is it because they truly misaligned on values or couldn’t collaborate – or because they’d make us rethink how we work?”

Cox and Blake’s work on diversity and competitive advantage suggests that when you manage diversity well, you gain in creativity, problem-solving quality, market reach and flexibility. 

Make that “add” lens explicit in debriefs so it doesn’t get overridden by comfort.

4. Onboard for culture, not just tasks

Don’t assume people “pick up” culture. Use onboarding to:

  • Make values, rituals and decision norms explicit
  • Model psychological safety in early meetings (leaders admitting mistakes, inviting dissent)
  • Show how different strengths are used and celebrated in the team

That signals that culture fit = “this is how we work together”, not “this is how you should act to be liked.”

5. Measure culture health with data, not gut feel

Instead of “I just don’t think people like working here as much”, track:

  • Engagement and inclusion survey results (especially psychological safety items)
  • Retention and progression rates across different demographics
  • Who speaks, decides and gets credit in meetings and projects

This gives you a reality check: is your version of “culture fit” actually building a healthier, more effective team – or just keeping you comfortable?

Common misconceptions to retire

  • “We need people who ‘get us’.” Often translates to “people exactly like us,” which quietly shuts out diversity of thought and experience.
  • “They didn’t seem like a good fit.” Unless you can anchor that in specific behaviours against clear criteria, it might be code for “I don’t know how to work with someone who thinks differently.”

Final thought

“Culture fit” isn’t the problem. How we’ve been using it is.

When you define culture fit as shared values, complementary strengths, and real collaboration potential, you get teams that are more aligned and more diverse; more cohesive and more innovative.

Treat culture fit seriously. But treat it wisely:

  • Challenge “people like us” thinking
  • Design for culture add as well as culture fit
  • Use structure and evidence, not just instinct

That’s how you build organisations where different kinds of people can do their best work together – without diluting the culture you’re trying to protect.

Why does time in January feel slower than the rest of the year? 

Posted on by admin

TL;DR: there is nothing “wrong” with your clock. January messes with your perception of time for a bunch of very human, very predictable reasons.

1. How your brain actually measures time

Psychologists talk about two big ways we experience time:

  • Prospective time: you know you’re waiting, so you pay attention to time as it passes.
  • Retrospective time: you look back and judge how long something felt based on how many events and memories there were.

Research shows that in prospective mode, the more attention you direct to time itself, the slower it feels. In retrospective mode, periods with lots of distinct events feel longer in memory than quiet, repetitive stretches.

January hits both systems in awkward ways.

2. Boredom and low “event density”

December is packed: end-of-year rush, social events, holidays, travel, family chaos. Then suddenly… January. Psychology and neuroscience studies keep finding the same thing:

  • When we are bored, under-stimulated or doing repetitive tasks, we become more aware of time itself.
  • That heightened awareness makes time feel like it is dragging.

Media pieces summarising this research say the same thing in plain English: time feels slower when you are bored because your brain has fewer new things to process, so it “checks the clock” more often, internally and externally. In January, for many people:

  • The social calendar drops off a cliff.
  • Work can be strangely quiet or full of admin and catch-up, not exciting projects.
  • Days blur into each other with fewer standout moments.

That low “event density” means both in the moment and in hindsight, January feels like a long, flat stretch compared with the technicolour blur of December.

3. Mood, stress and the “winter” effect (even if you’re in summer)

A lot of the “January lasts forever” research comes from the northern hemisphere, where it is dark, cold and back-to-work. Shorter days, less daylight and colder weather are linked to lower mood and energy, and in some people to Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD).

There is a long-running debate in the literature about how depression affects time perception, but many clinical reports note that people with depressive symptoms feel time moving more slowly or heavily, even if laboratory timing tasks don’t always pick it up neatly.

Layer on top of that:

  • Financial stress after holiday spending
  • Tiredness from the previous year
  • The sense of going from “celebration mode” back to “grind mode”

But even here in Australia, where January = summer and long, hot days (with the occasional bushfire to keep us on our toes) – we still have 

  • Post-holiday comedown
  • Budget hangovers
  • Hot, sometimes exhausting weather
    That can still create a mix of fatigue, low motivation and “is this month ever going to end?” even under a blue sky.

All of that nudges mood down, and lower mood increases self-focus and monitoring, which can make minutes and days feel elongated.

4. Attention, goals and the “fresh start” effect

Here’s the slightly ironic part.

Behavioural scientists like Hengchen Dai and Katy Milkman have shown that temporal landmarks like New Year’s Day create a powerful fresh start effect. We mentally separate “old me” from “new me” and get a burst of motivation for goals like exercise, savings or changing jobs.

That interacts with time perception in two ways:

  1. We become more goal-focused in January.
  2. We therefore monitor our progress more.

When you are watching for results (Have I lost weight yet? Have I saved any money? Is this year “better” than last year?), you check in on time and milestones constantly. That is prospective time perception again: the more closely you watch time, the slower it feels.

So you get this funny combo:

  • More goals and expectations
  • Slower-feeling progress
  • Leads to a sense that the month is dragging on forever

5. Cultural calendar and contrast with December

There is also a cultural story baked into this.

Commentary in outlets like the New Statesman, Yahoo and others point out that people describe January as “the 74-day month” not because of the calendar, but because:

  • In many countries, you get paid early in December, then the next pay can be late January, so the gap feels huge.
  • There are fewer public holidays or celebrations between early January and late March, so there are fewer landmarks breaking up the weeks.
  • Everyone jokes about “longest January ever” online, which reinforces the narrative you are already half-feeling.

Psychologically, time is structured by landmarks and stories as much as by clocks. When the landmarks are sparse and the story is “wow, this month is endless”, your brain leans into that perception.

Putting it together

So, very roughly, January feels slower because:

  • Shared cultural narrative = “January is endless” becomes a self-fulfilling perception.
  • Less stimulation and more routine = boredom = more attention on time.
  • Post-festive comedown and stress = lower mood = heavier, slower felt time.
  • Fresh-start goals = constant progress-checking = time watched, time dragged.
  • Fewer social/financial landmarks = weeks blur together and feel like one long stretch.

So how can recruiters turn January from a slow start into a superpower?

1. Speed up the first touch

Respond within 48 hours of an application or referral. Early momentum prevents candidates from drifting to other opportunities. Try saying: “We’re moving quickly on this role. Here’s what the next week looks like.”

2. Set expectations from day one

Spell out the full process clearly. Tell them:

  • how many stages
  • who they will meet
  • when decisions are made
  • how long each stage will take

Clarity builds trust.

3. Personalise your communication

A short, human, specific update beats a polished corporate email. Candidates respond better when they feel like people, not tasks.

4. Shorten the process where possible

Aim for:

  • one structured interview
  • one panel or capability-based discussion
  • final checks

Two to three meaningful stages outperform five shallow ones.

5. Keep the role compelling

Amplify why the role matters in 2025:

  • What problems will they solve?
  • Why is this role important now?
  • What impact will they have in the first 90 days?

January candidates respond to purpose and momentum, not just duties.

6. Use small engagement touchpoints

Short updates keep candidates warm without overcommitting you. Examples:

  • “Just finished panel alignment, will update you tomorrow.”
  • “Checking availability for next steps.”
  • “Team loved your example about X. I’ll update you once we finalise timings.”

Tiny signals, big retention impact.

The December Slowdown Myth: Why Smart Teams Hire Now, Not Later

Posted on by admin

Every year, the same pattern plays out. Many organisations wind down their hiring as Christmas approaches, while a smaller group leans in. The second group consistently wins.

They get better access to talent, faster turnaround times, and noticeably stronger hiring outcomes. At Approach, we see this cycle play out across hundreds of recruitment processes in every corner of the Canberra market.

December is not a quiet period. It is an advantageous period. Here’s how to make the most of it.

1. More candidates are quietly open to change

December brings reflection. People reassess their workload, leadership, culture and growth, and many decide they want something different for the year ahead. Candidates don’t always apply for roles publicly, but they are more willing to have conversations, explore options and move when the right opportunity comes along. We see a noticeable increase in passive candidates taking recruiter calls during December compared to any other month.

Tip: Move quickly on strong talent. If someone is open now, they are likely weighing up a January move.

2. There is less competition for top talent

Most organisations hit pause until the new year, and the result is simple. Fewer job ads. Fewer processes. Fewer offers.

This creates a rare window where top candidates are not juggling multiple opportunities at once. They have more space to engage properly. Your message is more visible.

Tip: Treat December as a visibility advantage. Even one smart role launched now can attract candidates you would normally miss.

3. January bottlenecks slow everything to a crawl

The idea that hiring “starts again” in January is partly true, but it comes with a heavy cost. January is the most competitive month of the year. Job ads triple. Shortlists take longer. Candidates get pulled in multiple directions. Every step is slower because everyone else is trying to start at the same time.

Tip: Do the foundational work before Christmas. Even a half-completed process means you are ahead of the January surge.

4. Candidates value certainty during the holidays

While some candidates go on leave, most are still contactable and open to updates. What they value more than anything is clarity. Even small moments of communication over the break show progress and build trust. It reduces the risk of losing talent to faster-moving teams in January.

Tip: Set a simple holiday engagement plan. Even two short touchpoints can hold momentum until mid-January.

5. A head start in December becomes a head start for the year

Teams that hire in December don’t just fill roles sooner – they walk into the new year with capability in place, onboarding planned, and projects moving. That creates a compounding and competitive advantage. It is one of the most consistent patterns we see across our recruitment cycles.

Tip: Think of December hiring as a January investment. Every action now saves you time later.

How to get started this week

You don’t need a full hiring push – you just need a structured, low-friction approach.

  • Review your priority roles for Q1 and identify one or two that would benefit from a head start.
  • Align your interview availability before staff leave.
  • Ask your recruiter for a shortlist you can begin reviewing this week.
  • Set clear expectations with candidates about holiday timing.
  • Schedule your first January interview now so momentum is guaranteed.

December works when you keep it simple and intentional.

Final thought

Most teams wait until January to begin the year. The most successful teams begin in December. The difference isn’t huge effort – it’s timing and intention. If you want a more competitive year ahead, December is your moment to move.

If you would like support, a December shortlist, or a quick Q1 hiring plan, the Approach team can help you get ahead before the break.

The 3 Most Common Ways Businesses Undermine Their Own Hiring Process

Posted on by admin

Most hiring mistakes don’t come from bad intentions – they come from good intentions, done badly. Businesses want to move fast, make the right call, and secure great talent. But in the rush, they often create barriers that push the best people away.

After working with hundreds of organisations, we’ve seen the same avoidable mistakes play out time and again. So let’s talk about the three most common ways organisations get in their own way – and how to fix it.

1. Hiring before defining the role properly

A position description isn’t the same as a purpose. Too often, businesses start recruiting before they’re clear on what success looks like. They list tasks and responsibilities instead of outcomes: “we need someone to do X,” rather than “we need someone who will achieve Y.”

When this happens, hiring decisions default to familiarity over fit, leading to poor matches, higher turnover, and costly rehiring cycles.

How to fix it:

Before advertising a role, clarify:

  • What problem does this role actually solve?
  • What outcomes define success in the first 6–12 months?
  • How will this person make the team better?

If you can’t answer these, pause. A well-defined brief saves time, money, and future headaches.

2. Confusing speed with efficiency

Speed matters – but rushing the wrong way leads to bad hires.
Skipping conversations, condensing interviews, or making offers before reference checks can look efficient, but it usually costs more in the long run.

How to fix it:

Slow down, to speed up. Streamline your process without cutting corners.
Use structured interviews, set clear decision points, and make sure everyone involved knows their role. When each stage is purposeful, the process feels fast because it’s focused – not frantic.

3. Overlooking the candidate experience

Every stage of recruitment sends a message about your organisation.
A slow response, unclear communication, or disorganised interview process tells candidates more about your culture than your website ever could.

In competitive markets, a poor candidate experience can cost you great talent and damage your reputation – people share their frustrating experiences more emphatically than their great ones. 

How to fix it:

Treat candidates like future colleagues.
Communicate timelines clearly, provide feedback when possible, and follow through on promises. Even small gestures, like a personal update call or timely email, can leave a lasting impression.

Final thought

Hiring isn’t about speed or box-ticking. It’s about alignment, clarity, and connection.
When you define the role clearly, structure your process properly, and respect the candidate experience, you’ll build stronger, more committed teams that stay.