Ask your­self how many peo­ple you know who failed at a job, either left vol­un­tar­ily or were ter­mi­nated, because of their degree, expe­ri­ence or back­ground? In all like­li­hood, most of them failed because of inad­e­quate inter­per­sonal skills, an inabil­ity to com­mu­ni­cate, or because they just didn’t fit in with the cul­ture. In other words, like any rela­tion­ship gone awry, it wasn’t a good match.

If you received a call from a recruiter about a job you applied to, your résumé was com­pelling enough to be selected from the masses. You included key­words from the job post­ing, had good gram­mar, your expe­ri­ence was suf­fi­cient and you look like a poten­tial “match”.

If I only had a penny for every time an appli­cant told me, “It sounds just like me!”

Is it per­sonal perception?

The truth is, the “duties” of a job are only a piece of it. Envi­ron­men­tal, team and orga­ni­za­tional fit are the rest. Most com­pa­nies aren’t that good at con­vey­ing cul­tural fit in the job post­ing. Many didn’t drive the cul­ture that has taken hold so under­stand­ing and con­vey­ing it to some­one exter­nally would be difficult.

Com­pa­nies that take the ini­tia­tive to pro­file tenured top per­form­ers make an invest­ment in their employer brand by ana­lyz­ing the cul­ture and work­force for trends and tar­get­ing recruit­ing and hir­ing prac­tices based on the results. They enjoy low turnover and high employee and cus­tomer satisfaction.

Another truth is, man­agers have var­ied lev­els of com­pe­tency in inter­view­ing. Since most com­pa­nies don’t go through the employee pro­file and com­pe­tency iden­ti­fi­ca­tion process, man­agers are left to do the best they can by hir­ing from the gut. One ques­tion can­di­dates can ask at an inter­view is if the com­pany has iden­ti­fied the per­son­al­ity traits of the most suc­cess­ful employ­ees. Even if the com­pany hasn’t imple­mented psy­cho­me­t­ric test­ing, at the very least the man­ager will tell you the traits they feel are impor­tant and you can dis­cuss them and assess whether you feel they are a match.

Under­stand­ing your own com­pe­ten­cies, to include your emo­tional intel­li­gence, hav­ing ques­tions pre­pared for the inter­view that deal with this topic and being hon­est with your­self about employer expec­ta­tions and orga­ni­za­tional fit, will help you assess whether a job and com­pany are a match for you.