Yesterday, we discussed how company culture *IS* your brand.  The idea is that you have to WALK the WALK and TALK the TALK.  You can say that your company is fresh and lively, but you have to exude that in your company culture.

What happens when you grow your company and take on contractors and employees?  How do you continue to have that culture?  How do you continue to project the important aspects of your branding when other people are presenting your company?

One way to do this is to identify qualities and values in potential candidates.  If your company is built around freshness and liveliness, this isn’t something you can train someone to possess.  (You can’t teach a mild-mannered and soft-spoken person to exude liveliness.)  Why not hire someone who already has these attributes?

This is what Zappos does to breed its company culture.  Zappos has 10 core values at the center of its mission to provide the best customer service possible.   They are:

  1. Deliver WOW Through Service
  2. Embrace and Drive Change
  3. Create Fun and A Little Weirdness
  4. Be Adventurous, Creative, and Open-Minded
  5. Pursue Growth and Learning
  6. Build Open and Honest Relationships With Communication
  7. Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit
  8. Do More With Less
  9. Be Passionate and Determined
  10. Be Humble

When the company interviews potential new hires, they ask specific questions to determine whether the candidate possesses each of these values.  (An example for “Be Humble” might be: “Give me an example of a time when you had to eat crow in your previous position and admit that you had made a mistake.”)

In order for the company culture to flourish at Zappos employees have to embrace its core values.  These values are IMPOSSIBLE to be “trained” in.  Zappos employees have to possess these qualities so that they can walk the walk and talk the talk of Zappos culture.  It’s what their brand is built upon.  (And – I’m not talking that cute little logo with the shoes as the brand.  I’m talking about culture as the brand.  A brand is NOT a logo.)

Have you had this experience when hiring?  Were you able to identify these qualities in a potential candidate?  Or did you miss the mark and end up having a bad experience?  Share with us in a comment below.

Wanna learn more about hiring and training?  Make sure to check out The People Plan!