The Importance of the Cultural Interview in Our Selection Process

A company’s selection process is one of the most important moments, as it determines who will become part of the team.

In this blog post, we will discuss the first stage of our selection process: the cultural interview, which focuses on testing the candidate’s compatibility with the company’s values and organizational culture.
The goal of this interview is to find people who are comfortable working in an environment with shared values and beliefs. It is also an opportunity to determine the cultural fit of the candidate.

How do we achieve this?

We start by testing the compatibility of the company’s values and culture with the candidate’s values and personality. It is important for the company to have well-defined values and culture, as it helps candidates to have a clear idea of what to expect and helps the company find people best suited for its environment. In our case, Octobot is defined by five core values that guide our daily work.

Octobot’s Culture:

We value long-lasting relationships based on trust and mutual respect. We believe this is key to the success of our organization and the satisfaction of our team and customers.

We believe it is important to understand and empathize with others to understand their needs and perspectives. This helps us to serve our customers better and to work more effectively as a team.

We are committed to providing exceptional service, keeping our promises, and working together to achieve our goals.

We strive to stay up-to-date and adaptable to change. We aim for excellence in everything we do, from customer service to the quality of our work. We believe this focus on quality adds value to the overall result.

What do we want to know about you in the cultural interview?

An introduction to Octobot culture

In our case, the cultural interview is a conversation. We want to get to know the candidate by talking about their experience, interests, and goals. Therefore, the most important aspects are your comfort and honesty in your answers.

As this is the initial phase of the process, we will not dig into your technical expertise. However, we want to know the positions you have been developing, the programming languages and frameworks you have practiced during that time, and most importantly, we want to get to know you. This is a great way to start, so we hope you can share this information in the most concise way possible, allowing us a better understanding of your background.

If the candidate has any issue that would not allow them to attend the interview, they are welcome to contact our team. We are flexible and can reschedule the interview, but we appreciate knowing in advance, as it helps us better organize our work and provide a quality experience for other candidates.

One of the most important things we value is asking questions. We want a candidate’s first contact with Octobot to be filled with as much information as possible. Therefore, it is important to take this opportunity to clear any doubts, whether it is about our projects, values, culture, or even day-to-day office life. We have a lot to share!

Some conclusions

As you can see, the cultural interview is a fundamental stage in getting to know the candidate and allowing them to demonstrate their soft skills, honesty, and personality.

At Octobot we aim to create an environment of trust during this initial stage where our future collaborators can be themselves and evaluate if their interests and principles are aligned with our company’s culture. It is also an opportunity for the candidate to test if the environment and the organization as a whole is a good fit.

As we mentioned earlier, we have defined five core values that guide us. The cultural interview is the time to communicate these values clearly to the candidates.

Some recommendations we can give candidates are to approach the interview in a relaxed way, willing to share about themselves and their experiences honestly and without fear. We sincerely value their interest in working with us and understand that this is their opportunity to clarify any doubts.

In summary, our intention is to have a relaxed conversation that allows the potential team member to express themselves and highlight their skills and strengths, providing us with the information necessary to evaluate their aptitude for the position. We will ensure that the candidate enjoys the process and has the opportunity to gain industry experience during the selection process.

More tips about hiring processes and how to make them more diverse in this episode of our podcast OctoTalks. We interviewed Nekosi Nelson, a leader that revolutionized Google’s recruiting department.