3.3 Person–organisation fit

This approach stresses that people's behaviour and performance are strongly influenced by the environment in which they find themselves. So being successful in a job in one organisation does not necessarily imply success in a similar job in another. In assessing the suitability of a job applicant a manager should explore the reasons why a person has performed well in their existing job and consider whether similar conditions apply in the new job. Advocates of the person-organisation fit approach stress that an important consideration in recruitment is how suited the applicant is to the organisation – its style, approach, pace of change and informal ways of working. In other words, you need to think beyond whether someone simply has the technical skills to perform in the job and assess their fit with the culture of the organisation. However, this carries the danger of excluding suitably qualified candidates because their ‘face does not fit’. This approach suggests a greater need to describe the context of the job to applicants, including the difficulties and pressures associated with it. In general, ‘overselling’ a job can result in individuals leaving after a short time and hence the costs of a repeat recruitment and selection process and further managerial time.